I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."

The introduction of this Bill is an important landmark in Colonial history and the occasion of much expectancy in Ceylon. It marks for the people of Ceylon, hitherto a Colonial people inside the Commonwealth of the British Empire, the attainment of Dominion stature, of full self-governing status, and is for us a sign of the mutual confidence and good will which exists between Britain and the people of Ceylon. Britain has, for the past century or so, striven to establish in all her Colonies free self-governing institutions, and to create sound social and economic foundations on which political democracy can safely rest. In more recent years the spirit of nationalism in our overseas territories has grown and spread. It has been our service to help to guide these influences into constructive channels and to assist the peoples concerned to an increasing realisation of responsibility in their own affairs. We have sought to transform our Imperial polity into a co-operation of free peoples.

What we are doing today is to register another fulfilment of our work and purpose, the attainment in the case of Ceylon, following our all-too-modest declarations of policy, of independence and of responsible self-government. Such an achievement warms our own heart and impresses the world with our sincerity and our good faith. Ceylon is a territory which has played an honourable and loyal part in our Colonial history and whose friendship we have always prized. We congratulate her people and her leaders on her constitutional and social progress. We appreciate the quality of her life and the energy of her people. We hope that, in the exercise of her full responsibility inside the Commonwealth, her progress in securing the wellbeing and happiness of her people will continue.

There is little need for me to relate to the House the political evolution of Ceylon during the past 30 years. An admirable account appears in the Soulbury Report on Constitutional Reform, published in September, 1945. It is only necessary for me to mention the work of the Donoughmore Commission and the bold steps taken in the Constitution which emerged from that enquiry. It was an experiment in adult suffrage and in responsible democracy, and it contributed much to the political maturity and drive for effective democracy of the people of Ceylon. The system established by that Constitution worked for 15 years, without serious political trouble, and it stood the strain of a world war. Another Constitution has since come into operation as the result of the Soulbury Commission. May I again pay a tribute to Lord Soulbury and the members of his Commission for the wisdom of their work? The meeting of the new Parliament under that Constitution will be the occasion next week of great rejoicing in Ceylon. Full Cabinet responsibility under a Prime Minister has been established, and the Government is now responsible to a Parliament of two Chambers.

It was in 1945 that His Majesty's Government declared their sympathy with the desire of the people of Ceylon to advance towards Dominion status and their willingness to co-operate with them in their progress towards that goal. His Majesty's Government then expressed the hope that in a comparatively short space of time such a status would be evolved. In June of this year I stated to the House that His Majesty's Government recognised that the people of Ceylon were anxious to see their aim realised as quickly as possible. I pointed out, however, that no change could take place until a new Ceylon Government under their new Constitution was in office and functioning. It was the intention of His Majesty's Government after that to negotiate certain agreements with the Ceylon Government on terms satisfactory to both so that steps could be taken to confer upon Ceylon fully responsible status within the British Commonwealth of Nations. That development was inevitable because of the political feeling and aspirations of the people of Ceylon and the fast changing political development in the East.

Events outside Ceylon have moved rapidly in the past year or so. India and Burma were offered independence and there grew in Ceylon a desire no less fervent and demanding that full responsibility should be realised by the people of that Colony. Ceylon has consistently co-operated with Britain and has taken pride in her loyalty, her contribution to the war and her ties with the United Kingdom. It was consistent with her whole spirit that she should seek to take control of her own destiny within the framework of the British Commonwealth. The Ceylon election results were made known on 20th September, and her responsible Government promptly negotiated Agreements to provide for continuity in respect of external affairs and defence, matters which vitally concern not only Ceylon and ourselves but the other partners in the Commonwealth, and also for the personal interests of the public servants of the old order. These Agreements were signed on 12th November by the Prime Minister of Ceylon and the Governor of Ceylon, on behalf of His Majesty's Government, and have been issued in Command Paper 7257. The Defence Agreement provides for mutual assistance for defence against external aggression and protection of essential communications. It also grants His Majesty's Government the necessary facilities, including the use of naval and air bases, military establishments, etc. His Majesty's Government will continue to exercise existing control and jurisdiction over our Forces in Ceylon.

While Ceylon agrees that we should have these facilities, suppose Ceylon remains outside any future war. What then is the position about these facilities?

If the Agreement is studied, the hon. and gallant Member will see that the point is covered. The external Affairs Agreement provides that Ceylon shall follow in relation to external affairs generally the principles and practice of other members of the Commonwealth, and a High Commissioner will represent her in London, and the United Kingdom will be represented by a High Commissioner in Ceylon. Other points are covered, such as support for Ceylon in her application for membership of the United Nations Organisation and its agencies; and, if Ceylon so requests, we shall gladly sponsor to other countries Ceylon's desire for diplomatic representation. The third Agreement is concerned with public officers and provides safeguards in respect of the salary, leave and the pension position" of the officers concerned, those continuing in the Service and those who are already in receipt of pension rights. It provides for compensatory terms to certain classes of other officers, and covers other points concerned with Service needs. The Colonial Service will, of course, continue to provide an opportunity for an officer to continue his career in the Colonial Service if he so desires.

I should also add that, in place of a Governor, there will be a Governor-General who, in the exercise of his powers, authorities and functions will, generally speaking, act in accordance with the constitutional conventions applicable to the exercise of similar powers, authorities and functions in the United Kingdom by His Majesty. I should perhaps also mention that the Government of Ceylon, while able in the future to amend their own Constitution, have felt that the provisions of the existing Constitution safeguarding minorities should be retained. They would obviously not wish to provoke any controversy on these issues in Ceylon. Thus the provision for an Upper House and the provision barring discriminatory legislation will be retained by the Ceylon Government.

The 1946 Ceylon Order in Council which embodies the recent constitutional changes will now, in the light of these developments, have to be amended in certain particulars after the passing of this Bill. This Bill is, therefore, designed to confer on Ceylon fully responsible status. In the Agreement on External Affairs the words used are:—

"… the status of a fully responsible member of the British Commonwealth of Nations, in no way subordinate in any aspect of domestic or external affairs, freely associated and united by common allegiance to the Crown."

Further:

"The Government of Ceylon—"

is ready—

"—to adopt and follow the resolutions of past Imperial Conferences. In regard to external affairs generally and in particular to the communication of information and consultation, the Government of the United Kingdom will, in relation to Ceylon, observe the principles and practice now observed by the Members of the Commonwealth, and the Ceylon Government will for its part observe these same principles and practice."

The Bill will, therefore, give independence to Ceylon within the British Commonwealth of Nations. Parts of it follow almost verbatim sections of the Statute of Westminster. For instance, Clause I (1) and the first half of Clause 4 (2) and the First Schedule do this, and are, of course, designed to prevent the extension to Ceylon of future Acts of the United Kingdom Parliament and to remove existing limitations of Ceylon's legislative power. The provision of Clause 4 (1) inter alia enables His Majesty by Order in Council to make adaptations of Acts and other instruments in addition to those made by the Bill in order that all necessary modifications in Acts and other instruments not foreseen may be covered.

The Bill will be examined in Committee, and it is scarcely necessary for me to say more about it. I will only add that with the passing of the Bill, and with the necessary changes made by the Order in Council, the responsibility of myself and the Colonial Office for Ceylon will cease. The Colonial Office will relinquish its task with a heavy heart to the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations because of our long and friendly association with the people of Ceylon and the contribution we in the Colonial Office have tried to make to Ceylon's political and economic progress. If we have also contributed a roll of distinguished Colonial servants and governors—among whom I include the present Governor, Sir Henry Moore—and men who have served Ceylon and won the affection and esteem of the Ceylon people, Ceylon has in its turn produced distinguished and friendly statesmen, among whom we count today Mr. Senanayake who has played, with his colleagues, so great a part in wisely guiding his country and in securing the present happy development and cementing in firm friendship the peoples of our respective countries.

I feel honoured to have played some limited part in the creation of this Bill. I am sure the House will give it a hearty welcome and will send it on its way, wishing the people of Ceylon all prosperity in the exacting responsibilities their Government have now assumed. There are difficulties ahead for Ceylon. Her political difficulties will not be easy to remove; her economic problems will not yield readily to a solution, but her people have courage and faith in themselves and their destiny; they have loyalty to the Commonwealth and good will towards us. They are determined to take their stand for the ideals and purposes which animate our Commonwealth of free nations. We welcome them because we are confident they will prove themselves a great free democracy in the vicissitudes through which their region of the world is passing.

It is only two weeks since this House was asked to discuss the Burma Independence Bill. At that time most of my hon. and right hon. Friends on this side of the House felt themselves unable to support the Government. We took that attitude in no party spirit, and certainly with great reluctance. It was because we felt that the constitution which was proposed for Burma, and the conditions which prevail in Burma, would mean that instead of granting independence, we should be condemning the country to anarchy and chaos. However, because we took that attitude then, it is with all the greater pleasure that we feel we can support His Majesty's Government in the Bill they are laying before the House today. We have one or two points of great principle to raise but, generally speaking, the Bill will meet with our support. This is one of those all too rare occasions when all parties in this House can combine and be united in one of these great evolution- ary processes of the British Commonwealth.

What is happening today with regard to Ceylon represents the work of many Parliaments in this country and many Secretaries of State; in fact, this Bill may be termed the ideal and logical evolution of the British Commonwealth, in that Ceylon from now on is bound to us only by ties of loyalty, affection and enlightened self-interest; because, as I see this Bill, there are no strings attached to this grant of independence. Ceylon, as the right hon. Gentleman has said, has the right to amend her own constitution—a right not even possessed by Canada—and the Defence and External Affairs Agreements can be revoked at any time, so far as I understand them. Therefore, in what we are doing today, we are granting Ceylon complete independence to remain in the Empire or to go outside it as she wishes.

I hope that this Bill, and what lies behind it, will be appreciated not only in this country and in Ceylon, but throughout the world. It is the best possible answer that could be given in the United Nations, or anywhere else, to those countries which are accusing us of imperialism—to Russia, in particular, which is carrying on a most vicious campaign against us at this moment, and in the United States where, though there is no animus against us, there is certainly ignorance. In all my visits to the United States, I have not met one American in a thousand who had heard of the Statute of Westminster, or, certainly, who recognised that it is as much a landmark in our political evolution as the Bill of Rights or Magna Charta.

Ceylon starts off her career as a fully responsible member of the British Commonwealth with many advantages. First, she has a low public debt and a balanced economy, and I think many countries will envy Ceylon in the happy mixture she has of subsistence production and money crops. Ceylon has been fortunate in that she has attracted a large amount of outside capital in the development of rubber and of tea, and I have every confidence that all responsible people in Ceylon will realise the importance of maintaining that capital. There is no commercial agreement attached to this Treaty; I imagine that is because the British interests in Ceylon have confidence in the good sense of responsible Ceylonese. The absence of such an agreement is in marked contrast to what the United States have done with regard to the Philippines. We often hear a lot about what they have done in the Philippines, but they have tied up the Filipinos pretty well not only for defence but also for commerce. We are imposing no limitations whatsoever. I hope that all sections of Ceylon public opinion will realise the advantage of retaining that capital. After all, it is an advantage to any country—it is an advantage to the United Kingdom—if it can attract outside capital, provided it can do so on terms which do not infringe its fundamental independence and on terms which fit in with its general ideas of economic freedom. As long as outside interests in Ceylon are prepared to fulfil that condition, and are prepared to fulfil two other conditions—first, that they pay their rightful share of taxation; secondly, that they become ideal employers—then I hope that the interests in Ceylon will have every confidence to remain there.

The second great advantage which Ceylon has is that she starts off with a highly intelligent and well-educated electorate who have for a number of years been experimenting in a greater and greater degree with the ideal of self-government. What is more, she can call upon a loyal and experienced Civil Service to carry out the wishes of her Government. Her last advantage is that she starts off her career of independence as a Member of the British Commonwealth. A great Dominion statesman said the other day that

"Membership of the Commonwealth is independence with something added, and not a detraction of sovereign will."

Independence without security is a meaningless term, a paper crown, a tinsel sceptre. In the world in which we five, in which power politics prevail, to talk about the independence of a small island like Ceylon, unless she can place some reliance on some outside organisation, is just a meaningless jumble of words. I am afraid that no reliance can yet be placed on the United Nations, and the only world organisation which stands by its members in good times and in bad, in peace as well as in war, is the British Commonwealth. Ceylon starts off her independence with that great, and, I think, essential, condition of independence, namely, that she can rely on the Commonwealth of Nations to defend her, if necessary.

Ceylon faces three great difficulties. The first is the problem inherent in all democracies, including our own, that in the difficult times in which we live the electorate should be capable of understanding the real problems on which they are asked to vote, and of differentiating between the sober realities of statesmanship, and the lush and easy promises made by demagogues. Where democracy has failed throughout the world—and, let us remember, it has failed over a very large part of the New World and of Europe—it has not failed because of a lack of good paper constitutions, but because it has been unable to produce capable leadership and a sense of responsibility on the part of the electorate.

The second danger which Ceylon faces is one which the right hon. Gentleman has not mentioned except very shortly today. It is that Ceylon is not a single racial unit. There are two races in Ceylon, the Sinhalese and the Jaffna Tamils, who are in the northern part of the island, and number 1,500,000, out of a total of 6,500,000. They differ from the Sinhalese in race, language, religion, and, to a large extent, in background. They are extremely capable and intelligent people. I have had a lot to do with them because they played a very large part in the development of Malaya. It was the Jaffna Tamils who came over in large numbers and started the railways and Government services. Where there is a racial minority in the country the danger is that it may become a permanent political minority, and if it does become a permanent political minority, Ceylon's evolution on a democratic basis is bound to fail.

This imposes on the two peoples of Ceylon a very great responsibility. It imposes on the Sinhalese the responsibility of seeing that they grant fair and, if necessary, rather more than fair, treatment to the minority not only in political power, but also in administrative responsibility, so that that minority is not inevitably driven to regard itself as a permanent political minority. There is also an obligation on the Tamils that they should not ask for more than is reasonable, above all that they do not keep on threatening the country that they will make affiliations with India, nor demand more than their just due. One or two statements I have seen lately about the minority flirting with Communism makes one wonder whether or not they realise the inherent danger which faces them if they go in that direction.

The third danger is a new danger, at least in the last 20 years. It is the danger of Communism itself. I regard Communism no longer as a political or economic creed, I regard it today as predominantly an instrument of Russian foreign policy. I think nothing is more dangerous than to regard it as a form of advance Left-wing politics. If Ceylon allows herself to be dominated by the Communists, then this talk of independence is the most hollow words that have ever been uttered in the world. We have" seen what has happened in Eastern Europe, and if the Tamils, or any other party, take this viper to their bosom, to secure any temporary political advantage, the viper will destroy them, and their hopes of any lasting independence on a democratic basis. Those are the three dangers which I see, and I believe there is a sufficient wealth of experience in Ceylon for their statesmen to see those dangers also.

The three agreements which have been issued with the White Paper are an essential part of the Bill. I think it a fair criticism of the Government that we have not really had enough time to consider those agreements. They have been out for less than a week, and I believe that hon. Members on both sides of the House would have liked a longer time in which to consider them. They could have considered them and written to friends in Ceylon for their comments, or they may have gone out to Ceylon to see for themselves. One of the curious things about this Parliament is that Members go flitting about all over the world, and I think quite rightly so, but why do we not flit about a little more in the Empire, especially when we are making great constitutional changes? We are not responsible for what happens in Bulgaria, but we are responsible for what happens in Ceylon and Burma. It would have been most sensible if some of us could have gone out there to talk about these things with the people. As it is, we are bound to make our comments. I will not say with complete ignorance, but with only our own and our friends' experience on which to draw. I hope this is the end of this sort of thing, and that if any more changes are to be made in the Commonwealth, the House and the country will be given time to consider them.

I have no comment to make about the Agreement dealing with public officers, except that I am pleased to see that, unlike those in Burma, these officers, whose careers are to be interrupted, are not only to get a proportionate pension, but also some compensatory consideration. We are also to continue with the services of a number of people recruited from this country. I have not much to say about the Agreement on External Affairs. We have promised to sponsor Ceylon's entry to the United Nations. This gives a chance to the Government to do one of those imaginative things which Governments so seldom do. We have agreed to be responsible for the foreign affairs of Ceylon in those parts of the world in which they do not wish to have direct representation themselves. That, I hope, is not just a temporary thing, but will become a permanent thing. It will only be permanent if we make the people of Ceylon realise that it is in no sense a status of inferiority.

What are the chances of people of Ceylon getting into our Diplomatic Service? They are capable, educated people and we can make this approach to foreign affairs in other parts of the world something permanent. We might go further, and in some parts of Asia, where the interests of Ceylon are greater than those of the United Kingdom, we could ask the Ceylonese to represent the United Kingdom. That would be a nice gesture. We have a chance—shall we take it, or make the people of Ceylon feel that they have a status of inferiority and therefore that it is something which they want to be rid of at the earliest opportunity?

The main point I want to raise is with regard to the Defence Agreement. As the right hon. Gentleman rightly said, this is made not only in the interest of Ceylon or of the United Kingdom, but of the Commonwealth generally. I need not remind the House that Ceylon is a vital and central link in Imperial defence. Therefore, the Defence Agreement must be looked at not only bearing in mind what Ceylon or we want, but what the Commonwealth wants as well. The first question I wish to ask is, "Before this Agreement was drawn up, did Australia and New Zealand see it and agree to it?" I should be quite happy to give way to the right hon. Gentleman if he would like to answer that point. Did Australia and New Zealand come in on this discussion and have they agreed to this Defence Agreement?

I think that the hon. Member may assume that it is quite unlikely that we should make an agreement of this kind without consultation with other Members of the British Commonwealth.

The right hon. Gentleman has not answered my question. I asked whether they had agreed to it. So far as I can see, this is an agreement which is revocable. If the right hon. Gentleman would like to give an answer, I am willing to give way.

There has been the fullest consultation with the Commonwealth in the making of this agreement.

That does not answer the point at all. It does not answer whether they have agreed to it. I am sure the House will agree that it would be quite impossible to provide any help to Australia and New Zealand if we could not rely upon the bases in Ceylon.

Do I take it from the hon. Gentleman's observation that, until there has been assent to the agreement on the part of all our Dominions, this agreement should not go forward on behalf of His Majesty's Government?

I did not say that at all. What I said was that Ceylon is an essential link in Imperial Defence. The right hon. Gentleman has said it himself. I go further and say that in the long run we cannot bring help to Australia and New Zealand if we cannot rely upon bases in Ceylon. I asked the right hon. Gentleman whether or not Australia and New Zealand agree to the somewhat indefinite terms of this agreement, and he has not said that they do. Therefore, I assume that they have not agreed to it. I hope that the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies will reply to this point on behalf of the Government. I should have thought that there was a very strong case for having this Defence Agreement for a term of years and not, if I may quote the phrase: "… as may be mutually agreed." What is the meaning of that phrase or, in the case of military assistance:

"… as it may be in their mutual interest to provide."

I thought that the right hon. Gentleman skimmed over this with great speed and agility. We ought to know what is meant by those two phrases. Does it mean that either side can revoke the agreement at a minute's notice? Does it mean that if there was an extreme form of government either here or in Ceylon, a form of government that did not in any way represent the fundamental ideas of either country, that this agreement could be revoked at a moment's notice? That is a very different thing from getting the sort of agreement which the right hon. Gentleman hinted at just now.

Would not the hon. Gentleman agree that if there was a definite date at which a reconsideration was to take place, it would make that reconsideration inevitable, whereas this rather indefinite way of dealing with the position is in the best traditions of Commonwealth relations as between members of a family?

I am not sure about that. The hon. Gentleman said that it would mean it would have to be reconsidered at the end of that time. Of course, it would. Whenever any agreement comes to an end, one has to consider whether to go on with it. Let us see what we are doing. There is a danger here that the whole defence structure of the Commonwealth might disappear overnight. If I am putting a wrong interpretation on it, nothing will give me greater pleasure than to be assured that there is in this Defence Agreement some degree of permanency which does not appear on paper. There is nothing derogatory to complete self-government in a defence agreement regarding bases. We have given to the United States bases in the British West Indies for 99 years, and those islands certainly will have reached complete self-government long before that time is out. The Philippines have given to the United States a lease over 23 bases for a term of 99 years, and in the case of Panama the same kind of thing has been done. What, therefore, is the reason why there has been no defence agreement with a time limit attached to it?

Would the hon. Gentleman say that, for example, in the case of the United States and the Philippines, the Philippines were completely free and independent when they made that agreement?

They say that they were. The United States claimed that they were. I should think that if the hon. Gentleman, with his Communist background—

And Communist foreground.

If the hon. Gentleman wants to talk like that, we might hear something about Lithuania, Latvia, Esthonia and other parts of the world.

There is another side to this question of a term of years, if these bases are to be any good. If we are to provide for the effective defence of Ceylon, a lot of money must be spent either in creating bases, or, as in the case of Trincomalee, of modernising them and keeping them modernised. We cannot expect Ceylon to do that. We shall have to bear the cost, or part of it, and I think that Australia or New Zealand will also want to bear part. Can we be expected to put money into bases from which, so far as I can see, we can be given a moment's notice? There may be good reasons for having an agreement in this form, but we have not been told those reasons today. We want a little more information from the Under-Secretary of State than we have had from the right hon. Gentleman. Here is a chance for a gesture, for an imaginative treatment of common defence. I sincerely hope that we will do our best to get into the Imperial Services, the Army, Navy and Air Force, young Ceylonese. They are a great people with a great history. Let Us make this joint Defence Agreement one of co-operation in the fullest sense of the word, and not something with any taint of inferiority or any sense of impermanence about it.

In conclusion, let me say that all of us in this House wish Ceylon every success in her new status. We believe that, in her people and in her economy, she has all the conditions not only for real independence in the fullest sense of the word, but for a full life for her people. I wonder whether I might make two suggestions, one of them to ourselves and the other to the people of Ceylon? Here we have one of the first Asiatic Dependencies setting off as a fully independent member of the Commonwealth. Would it not be rather appropriate if this House made some gesture to the Ceylon Parliament either by the presentation of a Speaker's Chair or a Mace, or some definite token of that sort? We did it in the case of Australia and Canada, and now that we are building the new House of Commons they have offered to provide us with visible tokens of their loyalty and good will. I hope we can do something like that. It would be a very nice gesture, which would, I know, be appreciated by the people of Ceylon.

The other thing I want to say is that I am hoping that, at no very distant date, some of us in this House may receive an invitation from Ceylon to be present at one of their early sessions under the new Constitution. It would not only be a pleasing experience for us, but would also be an opportunity for us to express in person what we feel today, that is, a sense of satisfaction in the passing of this Bill, and to express our good will to them in the days that lie ahead.

I rise to congratulate the people of Ceylon in achieving the Dominion status which this Bill, when it becomes an Act, will give to them. During the past few weeks, we have witnessed several momentous legislative Acts which have given to people in the eastern part of the world a different place in the political life of the nations. We witnessed the great transaction when freedom was given to India, and, as the hon. Member for Hornsey (Mr. Gammans) has reminded us, the granting of complete freedom to Burma a few days ago, though that country, to our regret, elected to stay outside the Commonwealth. While we would desire that Ceylon would follow some of our traditions and pursue a happy co-operation in the British Commonwealth, we must make it clear to ourselves and the world generally, that what happens in these places is the affair of the people on the spot. The hon. Member for Hornsey (Mr. Gammans) gave us what seemed to me to be a lecture on the dangers of Communism. I am no Communist, but I do say, as one representative of the people of my country, that the affairs of the people in Ceylon are for the people of Ceylon to decide for themselves, and that, while I would wish that they would continue, as I believe they will, in close co-operation, I do not think they will thank us for advice of that kind.

It seems to me that we might reasonably look for further information in respect of the Defence Forces. I must say that I am rather in the dark about some of these arrangements. The hon. Member for Hornsey expressed his apprehensions about the position of Ceylon as a link in our defence arrangements in the future, and I think he did so quite rightly. He made the point that the White Paper recently issued has not been in our possession sufficiently long for us to give it that considered attention which these matters require, and I hope that the Under-Secretary will give us some more information as to what is involved in this mutual arrangement between Ceylon and ourselves for protection against aggression. We have heard a reference to the Philippines and other parts of the world, and what exercises my mind when we are considering problems of this kind is how other nations outside the British Commonwealth—and I have not only America in mind—regard such arrangements in respect of the new experiment which the world is seeking to complete, that is, some sort of international defence arrangement under the United Nations.

I do not like the parcelling out of different parts of the world in the interests of certain nations, whether it be America, Britain or Russia, or whoever it may be. In that connection, we may see an interesting experiment when we deal with Palestine in a few months time, but this problem of security and administration of different parts of the world is a problem which is exercising the minds of some of the younger Members of the House. Some people fear, for example, that if we seek to stay in Ceylon it may be to protect our own interests there, and that if there was some kind of international arrangement, or an international guarantee of security, there would be less suspicion in that regard. I hope we may hear from the Under-Secretary something more about the arrangements which have been made for the defence of Ceylon. It seems to me that this Bill ought to have the united support of the House, and I congratulate the Government on having introduced it.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey (Mr. Gammans) ended his speech on a very happy note in his suggestion that some token should be given, through you, Mr. Speaker, to the Ceylon Parliament when it attains the complete independence which this Bill will give to the island. I thought also that my hon. Friend's point regarding visits by hon. Members of this House before these big constitutional changes are made was an extremely important one which he put very well. In passing, I thought that the Secretary of State might have taken steps to send some Members from this House to Malta when the new Parliament was opened by His Royal Highness the Duke of Gloucester. Although we may be a little late now, I hope steps will be taken to send a delegation out to both islands soon.

There was in Ceylon a feeling that the Conservative Party were going to oppose this Bill. I must at once declare my own interest in this island in that my wife owns property there. It is a pity that this Bill has come along so quickly, because that illusion—and it is a complete illusion—could have been dispelled very quickly if there had been a little more time. It is certainly not the intention of my hon. Friends, myself or of any Conservatives who wish to speak in this Debate to oppose this Bill in any way. On the contrary, I give it my unqualified support, and I believe that this great Measure does carry Dominion status to the island. I congratulate the Secretary of State on having called the Bill the Ceylon Independence Bill, because that settles, once and for all, the status of Dominion and Commonwealth independence. I would also like to congratulate the new Under-Secretary upon his appointment. I was disappointed in his first speech, and, perhaps, he will be a little more modest in attacking us in future. I say seriously, that it is the duty of all of us to look after the people in the Colonies and to keep party politics outside Imperial or Colonial affairs, as far as that is possible. I agree that it is not always easy.

The Sinhalese and the people of Ceylon have had sufficient experience of running their own affairs, and I believe that they can be trusted to show a high standard of efficiency and responsibility. Each case of the Colonies must be judged on its merits. The Secretary of State, of whatever party, has a very difficult problem to solve in carrying out his policy in the state in which Ceylon is in now. The Donoughmore experiment was only fairly successful. Other Colonies may reach this state of independence very gradually, and it will be a very different thing to determine in those countries how the stages are to take place. I believe that this country does not realise what a vast difference there is between the case of Burma and that of Ceylon. Ceylon has law and order established, and the greatest gifts that a Government can give to any people are law, order and peace, whereas Burma, owing to the war, is in a very different state. Ceylon has not been overrun, and is not subject to wholesale dacoity.

I believe that my hon. Friend mentioned the economic position of Ceylon, and here is a point which, perhaps, the next time the right hon. Gentleman goes to U.N.O. he might care to make against some of the critics of this country. If my calculations are correct, the national debt of Ceylon is £30 million, which is equivalent to one year's income, or, in other words, somewhere about £4 10s. per head of the population. We in this House would be very happy if this country were in a similar position. Again, if my arithmetic is correct, our national debt is in the region of £24,000 million and our national income is, approximately £8,700 million. Therefore our debt is equivalent to, roughly, three years' income. Put another way, it could be said that every person in this country is born with a debt of £543, whereas, in Ceylon, every person is born with a debt of £4. Perhaps that is a gross exploitation by the British people. I do not think so.

At the moment, Ceylon has a revenue of about £10 million drawn from British tea interests. She has been able to use that money to keep her rubber industry going, but she cannot now compete with Malaya. In view of the increased prices which have recently taken place in rubber, I hope that it will be possible for her to do so in the future. Nevertheless, as the right hon. Gentleman said, the economic future of the island has many difficulties, the chief of which is the large quantity of food which it has to import, and for which it is now paying five times more than before the war. I am sure that, when Mr. Senanayake and Sir Oliver Goonetilleke come here to deal with the extremely difficult problem of the adverse balance of trade with which the new Dominion or Commonwealth is faced, they will receive all the advice and assistance possible from the Secretary of State and all of us.

Like my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey, I wish to say very little about the external side of the agreement. I welcome his suggestion that we should have representation of our affairs by other members of the Commonwealth in places where our United Kingdom interests are not very numerous. I think that is an excellent idea. It would not only have a good psychological effect; it might even lead to certain quite reasonable economies.

With regard to defence, I think we need a little more information about the arrangements in that respect, because we in this House are responsible for the expenditure of the money spent on the Services. As my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey said, it is very difficult to launch out and plan for aerodromes and naval and military installations, if we do not know how long we are going to use them. In spite of that, I would like to have an assurance that the Chiefs of Staff have agreed to this. I am sure they have.

indicated assent.

I see that the Secretary of State nods his head. In those circumstances, I accept these defence suggestions because, as has been pointed out, if we have a term of years, as has existed in other places, there is always the chance that it will become subject to party politics in the country concerned.

There is another reason—I am now speaking as a soldier—which I think is very important. We cannot have a base for either the Navy or the Air Force if that base is in a territory where the civilian population may prove hostile. I will give the House an example. In Egypt, before the war—I do not think that I am giving away any precious secrets because there has been a war— the General Staff appreciation was that it would require two divisions to hold the Delta. The expeditionary force available at the time to His Majesty's Government in this country was two divisions. Therefore, we could not possibly have operated from Egypt unless the people of Egypt at that time had been agreeable to our doing so. Quite obviously this country is capable, from a military point of view", of holding down Ceylon or any small country like that. But that does not make the country concerned into a base. We must rely on the goodwill and commonsense of the people of Ceylon. We want some elucidation about this; we want to have a period indicated. From a military point of view, one cannot secure a base merely by using infantrymen and bayonets. It would be far better to go into the desert and have an air base there.

In this troubled world there can be no question of Ceylon standing by herself from either an economic or a military point of view. She needs the goodwill of India, Australia, New Zealand, and of this country. She also needs the markets which the other members of the Commonwealth can give her. Unless she can sell her tea, rubber and copra, the whole of her economy will collapse. I believe that the present members of the Government of Ceylon have shown great statesmanship. I hope that we shall be careful not to make their task more difficult, but it must be borne in mind that there is this minority to which my hon. Friend referred, and that it will require great statesmanship and tact if a racial minority is not to cause political differences. From my slight business interest in the island, I sincerely believe that this Bill will work and that the vexed question of Commonwealth status has been solved. Therefore, I have no hesitation in saying that I give the Bill my wholehearted support.

First of all, I wish to take up one point which the hon. and gallant Member for Hythe (Brigadier Mackeson) made. He worked out a very pretty sum in simple arithmetic of what was the relative wealth of the individual in Ceylon as against the individual in this country, on the basis that the national debt in Ceylon is £30 million, whereas ours is well over £20,000 million. Of course, that argument, apart from being completely hypothetical, is quite stupid. A country's national debt has to have some relationship to the wealth of the country. It is only because this country is wealthy that we could have a national debt of £20,000 million. Ceylon's national debt of £30 million may only reflect its poverty. Surely, that is not the way to calculate a country's wealth. Here are some figures which I think the House ought to have brought to its attention in this Second Reading Debate, which do reveal the country's economy. In 1944, 157 million rupees were sent from Ceylon to Britain by way of pensions, personal remittances and profits after paying the local Income Tax and E.P.B., and setting aside sums for reinvestment. This sum of 157 million rupees exported to this country was derived from the work of the people of Ceylon, as against a prewar national revenue of 100 million rupees. That is where the country's wealth goes. Therefore, if we want to know what is the state of the country, that is an example which cannot be refuted.

Would the hon. Gentleman explain how his party intend to maintain the wealth of this country? If such money is not to come here from overseas, how is the standard of living of the working man to be kept up?

We are discussing the Ceylon Independence Bill; when we discuss the Great Britain Independence Bill, I will make it quite clear to the hon. and gallant Gentleman how we can retain our independence and stability.

I hope the hon. Gentleman is not going to forget the amount of British capital that has gone into Ceylon.

Certainly not; I am coming to that. I shall not forget the amount of money that has gone into Ceylon, nor will the Ceylonese forget the power which that money represents. I believe that this discussion is making history, for we have had in succession a back bench Tory Member, a back bench Labour Member, and in the case of myself, a back bench Communist Member, all of whom support the Bill. I support the Bill because it goes a certain way—not the whole way—towards achieving the independence of Ceylon. For that reason I wish to make a few remarks. In the first place, how does the Bill come about? I would like to call the attention of the House to the statement made by the Secretary of State for the Colonies on 18th June in reply to a question by the noble Lord the Member for South Dorset (Viscount Hinching-brooke). He said:

"It must be appreciated that there are strong political forces in Ceylon which demand some further stage beyond the stage reached in the existing constitution"—

that is, the Soulbury Constitution—

"and the representations have come from Ceylon with the full endorsement of the Governor."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 18th June. 1947; Vol. 438; c. 2017.]

I suggest that is the reason why we are now discussing the Second Reading of this Bill. In Ceylon there are strong political forces who want a further degree of independence than was envisaged in the Soulbury Constitution. Therefore, while the Government are to be commended on the extent to which they have gone, the House should be under no delusion about the fact that this step has been taken only because of the political demand in Ceylon.

It is the right step.

I admit it is the right step, but it does not come, in the first place, from the good will of the Government and certainly not of the Tory Party. The people of Ceylon have demanded this independence and have indicated in many ways that this is what they want.

I would like to refer to the effects of British rule and occupation in Ceylon. In that country there are tea, rubber and coconut plantations. An hon. Member opposite has said that a relative of his has some interest in that country, and no doubt it is such an interest. The investing section of the British people have interests of that kind. Only one quarter of the productive land in Ceylon is used for the benefit of the Ceylonese people and three quarters of that land is used for plantations of the kind to which I have referred. Tea, rubber and coconuts are not the basic materials for home consumption in Ceylon. They are produced primarily for export. In fact, only one-sixteenth of the whole production of the country represents the cultivation of rice. This state of affairs has only developed in the last 50 or 60 years. Whereas 50 or 60 years ago the Ceylonese people were able to grow their own rice, which as everyone knows is their staple diet, today they have to import from places like Burma a large amount of the rice which they consume, because most of their land is used not for growing rice but for plantations for the benefit of the commercial investments of British interests.

Has the hon. Member ever seen a tea plantation? Has he seen what it looks like, and does he know whether rice can be grown on it?

The hon. Gentleman asks me if I have ever seen a tea plantation. If he means that I should not speak about a tea plantation because I have not seen one, then every hon. Member in this House speaks on subjects which he has no right to discuss. I have as much right to talk about tea plantations as the hon. Member for Hornsey (Mr. Gammans) has to talk about the working class. It will be observed that although, if I may say so with modesty, I am a reasonable expert on Communism, I have not made one reference to that subject, whereas the hon. Member for Hornsey, who knows nothing about it, has spoken about Communism for the best part of his speech. We in this House have to speak about things which we may not have seen, but of which we have read and know something about.

rose—

The hon. Member lost that round, so perhaps he will let me continue. I am speaking of facts, and I am surprised that an hon. Member on these Benches should dispute these widely known facts about cultivation in Ceylon. The industrial development of Ceylon has been restricted; its mineral and other resources have not been developed and, in the main, the industries in that country have been confined to serving in the interests of the plantations. That is the background of the situation, the inheritance left by Tory rule.

I wish to make some observations on the Bill and on the agreements. I would like to know how wide the agreements are. For example, the Colonial Secretary said in the same statement to which I referred a few minutes ago:

"Agreements will then have to be negotiated on a number of subjects. When such agreements have been concluded on terms satisfactory to His Majesty's Government and the Ceylon Government, immediate steps will be taken. …"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 18th June, 1947; Vol. 438, c. 2015.]

I would like to know what are those agreements. Three agreements have been referred to in the White Paper which we received a few days ago. Here may I add my voice to those hon. Members who have stated that it would be better if we had such documents in our hands somewhat earlier? I would like to know whether any other agreements have been reached.

No.

I understand there are no other agreements. I appreciate that Mr. Senanayake signed the agreements on behalf of the Ceylon Government, but I would like to know with whom were those agreements discussed in the first place. Were they ratified, or were they at least discussed in the Ceylon Council? If so, what was the nature of the discussion there and what conclusions were reached on those agreements? What is to be the relationship between the Ceylon Government and the British Military Administration? The Secretary of State said that we would exercise complete control over our Forces in Ceylon. I would like to know whether our Forces will be called upon to deal with any internal problems in that country. I hope the Minister will assure us that they will not, because we have already had such unfortunate experiences. I will not refer to the notorious example of Greece, because that is outside the Colonial aspect, but we might recall what happened last year in Persia, where there was a strike in the oilfields, and two divisions of troops were sent over to Basra on the Iraq side of the river near these oilfields, waiting to go into the Persian oilfields to maintain law and order. I want to know, therefore, whether the troops in Ceylon would be used for such purposes and whether there is any agreement relating to this matter.

The hon. Member for Hornsey raised the question of commercial agreements, and asked for information about the nature of any such agreement, if any, because none is mentioned in the White Paper. I also would like to know whether there is any implicit agreement of a commercial character, and whether the Ceylon Government will have full powers to make their own decisions in this respect, even at the expense of British investments in that country. If Ceylon is to be developed, as we all hope, in the interests of the Ceylonese people, adjustments will have to be made in the economy which obtains there at the moment, and this will affect the interests of certain investors in this country.

I accept the Bill for myself and my party. [Interruption.] It is very important for Ceylon that I accept it. But I cannot really understand what happened, in that it is only about a year ago that the new Constitution was introduced, only recently a general election took place, a new Assembly is gathered together, and now we have these proposals before us. Would it not have been wiser if such an intimation had been made to the Ceylonese people in the first place? We decided in this House last year what kind of a constitution we should impose, and then conferred it on Ceylon. We were the Government and we imposed it. For example, we decided there should be a senate of 30 Members, 15 elected and 15 appointed by the Governor. It is that particular Government today which is negotiating. I have already expressed some of my views on the negotiations, both in favour and against, but it is that Government which is negotiating. Is that Government really the one desired by the people of Ceylon? Has it the full right to negotiate? Would it not have been better the other way round—to have given them complete independence and then let them negotiate these particular agreements which are before us?

I should like to put the hon. Member right. The Constitution now in operation in Ceylon was accepted by the Legislative Council of Ceylon. The Government operating in respect of these agreements is a Government based on the newly elected Parliament of Ceylon. A general election has just taken place. A new Government has been set up, and it is that Government which is negotiating these agreements.

What the Secretary of State says is quite right, but the Secretary of State will recall that that Constitution was accepted only as a last resort by part of the representatives in Ceylon and transitionally, and that there was opposition not only from the Left—

The hon. Member's remarks about the Constitution are not within the scope of the Bill.

What I am trying to say is that had we not introduced that Constitution last year the people of Ceylon would have been freer. If we had given them full independence instead, they would have been freer to decide their future.

The hon. Member must remember that last week, when we discussed Burma, discussion then of the Constitution of Burma was ruled out of Order; and that, therefore, I must regard discussion of the Constitution of Ceylon as being out of Order in this Debate. Whether it could have been a better Constitution or not has nothing to do with this Bill.

I am certain, however, that the Secretary of State has understood the point, and maybe the Under-Secretary of State will dispose of it.

And be out of Order?

I hope that this Bill will mean that there will be an opportunity for the people of Ceylon to obtain their full independence. I hope that the Government will not heed what was said by the hon. Member for Hornsey, and what was implicit in much of what he said—that we should attempt to interfere further in that country. It is within his right to point out what in his opinion constitutes dangers, political or economic—

As the hon. Member is making a rather dangerous statement, would he quote what I said that suggested that we should interfere in Ceylon?

We are speaking in the British House of Commons, and if a Member of Parliament intimates that there are three dangers in a country which, in a short while, is to have independence, I believe that it is an indication to us, and a tacit request to the Government, to be prepared to face those dangers. I am not going over his points for I would not give the hon Member more publicity than he has achieved for himself. I ask the Government, therefore, not to heed those remarks, but rather to associate themselves with the remarks of my hon Friend the Member for Burslem (Mr. A. Edward Davies), who said that when we take steps of this kind we should give the peoples concerned opportunities of developing their own lives. If they want to progress in a certain way, that is their affair, and we should give them the utmost opportunity and freedom to do so. I hope that this Bill will pass the House quickly, and that it will be accepted as only a first step on the road to Ceylon's complete independence.

I regret that I cannot follow the hon. Member for Mile End (Mr. Piratin) as regards either his facts or his deductions from facts. He admitted that he had never seen a tea estate. That is nothing to his discredit. I do not think he has ever seen a coconut estate either. Indeed, he said that only a fourth of the cultivable land of Ceylon was used for the sustenance of the people.

I am sure the hon. Member does not want to misinterpret me. I said that only one-sixteenth of the land was used for rice plantations.

The hon. Member also said a fourth. He mentioned a fourth and a sixteenth. I am very accurate, because I have had a long training in accuracy in administration. Coconuts have a hundred uses. They are used for every possible economic need of the people of Ceylon, and, incidentally, for food. It so happens that the coconut plantations of Ceylon, which are estimated to be nearly 1,000,000 acres in extent, are almost all owned exclusively by Ceylonese. About half the rubber plantations of Ceylon belong to the Ceylonese also, and some of the tea estates belong to them too.

How many?

I will not descend to details about the actual amounts, because that is quite irrelevant.

If that is so, why mention it?

The hon. Member, as is usual with Communists, is indulging in fiction, and no one need pay the slightest attention to Communist propaganda, because it is never true.

This is an historic occasion. We are dealing with a people who have thousands of years of civilisation behind them. It may not be known to all hon. Members of this House that the Sinhalese language is Sanskrit, and is derived from sources from which our own language comes. The written records of Ceylon are, I think, the oldest in the world. Therefore, we are dealing with a people of a very high civilisation, a people of a very high culture, and a people possessed of a natural dignity. I do not wish to be understood to be saying anything that could be interpreted as being derogatory to the Tamils. They are very proud of their own language, which goes back thousands of years, too. We are dealing with a very cultured people, and people with a sense of humour, and people whom all Europeans like. Ceylon has always called itself the premier Crown Colony, and I think that that claim can be justified. I am not going to cast aspersions on the country in which the hon. Member for Hornsey (Mr. Gammans) is particularly interested, Malaya; but Ceylon was developed by us long before Malaya. Our occupation of Ceylon, has lasted 150 years. During that time we have given Ceylon a splendid administration, and we have developed the country—with the help of the Ceylonese—to an enormous extent.

When such big constitutional changes are taking place, as at present, it is only right to pay a tribute to the Civil Service of Ceylon, the premier service. We have sent out in recent times picked men from our universities, as we have sent them also to India, Malaya, and Hong Kong—not selected on any principle of nepotism, but selected after going through stiff examinations for the higher Civil Service. They have done a splendid job; they have contributed by their knowledge, ability, training, education and, above all, integrity; and they have earned the respect and love of the Ceylonese people. It may not be obvious to people at home, but in these Colonies the premier service, the Civil Service, has an immense say in the shaping of policy. In the case of Ceylon, the European Civil Service never resisted constitutional changes. On the contrary, I know that when the Donoughmore Committee went out some of the recommendations of that Committee came from the Civil Service. That was a most revolutionary change in the history of Colonial administration, because it placed in the hands of the people of the Colony full responsibility in their internal affairs under elected Ministers.

It might interest hon. Members to know that when the Donoughmore Constitution was placed before the Legislative Council of Ceylon the official members of the Council did not vote, and the Constitution was carried by the votes of the unofficial European Members. There is an idea sometimes current in quarters where knowledge of Colonial affairs is very superficial, and where propaganda is not always honest, that the Europeans who go out to the Colonies are dyed-in-the-wool obstructors of progress. In the case of Ceylon, the unofficial members of the Council were responsible for passing the Donoughmore Constitution, because the people themselves, through their elected representatives, were divided, and it was only the unofficial European Members' votes which carried the Donoughmore Constitution.

In the case of Ceylon, both the Government and the people under the old British Government in Ceylon acted in time; and the Donoughmore Constitution and the previous Constitution, all working in the direction of self-government, were all done in time, with the result that the people were given the blessed boon and burdens of responsibility before the 1939–45 war. The result was that, the Ceylon Government, the Ministers and the people—practically everybody except a few extremists on the Left—were 100 per cent. with us during the war. That was a proof of our statesmanship and of Ceylonese statesmanship. We have now reached the stage when the island is to have Dominion status. This is a remark able occasion, because hitherto Dominion status has only arisen in territories overseas where the ruling population has been white. In this case the Ceylonese people, of their own free will, are coming into the Commonwealth regardless of colour bars. Therefore, this is a most important event in the development of the Commonwealth, and I am perfectly certain they have come in to stay.

The hon. Member for Hornsey referred to the fact that in Ceylon there is a plural society, and said that there were two races. He is not quite correct, for there are several races—Malays, Moors, and Burghers, as well as Sinhalese and Tamils. However, I do not anticipate any trouble. The statesmanship of the Ceylon people is shown by the fact that Mr. Senanayake's party, which is the biggest party in Ceylon today, is composed of people of different races; there are Malayan, Tamil and Sinhalese Ministers. That party stands for a breach with Communalism, and I think that breach will grow. I do not think there will be any sort of trouble, owing to the fact that there is already a Tamil party; in Mr. Senanayake's party there are some Tamils and Sinhalese. I know that problem has given immense trouble in India, but in Ceylon the people are far more sensible, and these communal troubles do not go as deep there as they do in India.

The hon. Member for Hornsey also mentioned the question of defence, and asked if the Commonwealth Governments had agreed to the treaty with Ceylon. I think the correct constitutional position is, not that the Commonwealth Governments should agree, but that they should be consulted and have the facts put before them. The correct constitutional position is that His Majesty's Government in Britain, alone, are responsible for dealing with decisions in this matter.

I agree with that. What I was trying to find out was whether the terms of the Defence Agreement, which have no period attached to them, were regarded as satisfactory by the Governments of New Zealand and Australia, who are intimately concerned with them.

I do not know, but I think the Minister is quite correct in not answering that question. It would be incorrect constitutionally for him to answer it. It is quite sufficient, as has been stated, for our Government to place the facts before the Dominion Governments and to leave it at that. No doubt if the Dominion Governments wished to say anything they would have said it.

I entirely agree with the hon. Member for Hornsey in his remarks about the strategic importance of Ceylon. The strategic importance of that island is immense. First of all, there is the magnificent port of Trincomalee which is a naval base; Colombo is one of the great world ports; and apart from that, the position of the island in the Indian Ocean is such that it is a base of enormous importance. The hon. Member said that it affected not merely Ceylon but the Commonwealth. That is perfectly true. Indeed, I would go further and say that it affects the whole world, because peace is indivisible and war is indivisible, and Ceylon is a place of immense importance in world strategy.

I think the hon. Member for Hornsey wanted to have stated in the Treaty that bases in Ceylon would be given to Great Britain. As I understand the agreement, it is this. The present arrangement continues, unless that arrangement is changed by the consent of both parties. The Minister who replies will no doubt say if that is incorrect. I think it is correct. At the present time we have bases in Ceylon—in Trincomalee, together with air fields, and various things of that kind—and, as I understand it, that arrangement continues unless it is changed by the consent of both parties. Apart from that, the Ceylonese are a proud people, and it would have been most unwise for us to have tried to insist in a treaty that they gave us bases. Also, the Ceylonese leaders are highly responsible men, hardheaded and shrewd, and they have no hatred whatever for us, any more than we have for them. I am perfectly certain that in any arrangements which are required for the future the Ceylonese, because they are friendly towards us, because they know they need us, and because they know their island could not defend itself, there will not be the slightest trouble about the joint defence of Ceylon.

As regards the action of the Ceylonese leaders, I know most of them very well, having worked with them in the Legislature, and they are quite different from a great many Colonial leaders. As the hon. Member for Hornsey said, they have been gradually trained, owing to the various constitutional changes which have taken place in Ceylon; they have learned the arts of administration and of politics; they are responsible, level-headed men, and, in my opinion, their statesmanship has been first-class throughout the crisis of recent years. There has never been any violence in Ceylon. They have moved for self-government by constitutional means, and if anyone says that we have imposed anything on Ceylon by force or the like, they are saying what is quite untrue. In spite of the fact that they could not possibly resist our force, we have advanced them gradually to responsible government in internal affairs and to eventual Dominion status, although we could easily have suppressed any resistance they liked to make. The advance to Dominion status in Ceylon has been done on gradual lines; it has advanced by constitutional means, and has been granted generously and in time. It has been a model way of making great changes.

I strongly endorse what the hon. Member for Hornsey said about some symbolic token being given by us to mark this great occasion in the history of Ceylon. It would be an excellent idea if a Speaker's chair were sent out to commemorate the occasion. Hon. Members may not be aware of the fact that this House has given great assistance to Ceylon in framing her new Constitution. The respected Second Clerk-Assistant at the Table, Major Fellowes, went out some months ago to Ceylon to help them devise parliamentary procedure. I am informed that at the present time he is in Ceylon carrying out the same task. This sort of thing is immensely appreciated by the people in Ceylon. I am certain that they look up to this old House with great admiration and respect, and the fact that we have sent out one of our respected officers to help them will be greatly appreciated.

I have lived a good many years in Ceylon. I know Ceylon very well, and I speak the people's language. I do not think that any time while I was in Ceylon I ever heard an unkind or discourteous word said to me by the Ceylonese. One receives endless kindness and good will from them. They are a very warmhearted, tolerant people, with a sense of humour, and luckily they are not smitten with the appalling poverty we find in India. Fortunately the island is well watered and has a fairly good climate. It can grow all sorts of crops and the people have never been so poverty stricken as the people in some of the monsoon areas in the East. I am perfectly certain that every person like myself who has known Ceylon will wish the people of the island pros perity and success. I am convinced they will show the world that a people in an island in the Indian Ocean can really work democracy. In conclusion, I would offer my apologies and regrets for having to leave the House, in view of an appointment at 12.30 p.m. which I cannot possibly avoid. I hope that in these circumstances I shall be excused.

I am sure that the House listened with the greatest interest to the speech of the hon. Member for Swindon (Mr. T. Reid) which came from a great knowledge of Ceylon and its people. This Bill has met with the approval of both sides of the House. While endorsing what has been said about it, I am very uneasy in regard to this question of defence. Prior to Dominion status being granted to various parts of the British Empire, our country was almost entirely responsible for the defence of the British Empire. With the granting of Dominion status to Australia, Canada, New Zealand and so on, the question of Imperial Defence has been made more and more difficult. It is quite true that the Dominions have always done everything possible to assist in the defence of the Empire, and especially in the last two great wars. As in the case of Ceylon, no unit of the British Empire can stand alone in this matter of defence. We must be united in the matter of defence, and we must be certain, in the event of war, that every single member of the British Empire, or Commonwealth of Nations—I prefer to call it the British Empire—will be united, and that each unit will play its part.

This raises the question of bases, which is of the utmost importance. For centuries, we have been able to maintain the security of the Empire because of the many bases we possessed throughout the world. It has been solely on account of that fact that we have been able to give security to the sea routes vital to this country and to each member of the Empire. If we are unable, with the assistance of the great Dominions, to maintain the security of those trade routes, then the Empire will gradually dissolve, and will be defeated by an aggressor in the future. Ceylon cannot possibly stand alone, any more than any other unit of the British Empire, on this question of defence. Now that India has gone and Ceylon is to have Dominion status, it is of the utmost importance that not only shall we have a base or bases in Ceylon, but that we shall be able to maintain them and keep them up to date, so that it will be certain, in the event of war breaking out, that these bases will be available to be operated and utilised by us.

When Ceylon gets Dominion status, she can, in the event of war breaking out, like all of the other Dominions, remain neutral if she wishes. She need not ipso facto come into the war. Suppose that, in the event of a future war, Ceylon says that she will remain neutral, what will happen to the bases in Ceylon as far as this country and the other units of the Empire are concerned? If we are not able to use them, then any scheme of defence which has been built up on the basis that we can utilise these bases in Ceylon will fall to the ground. It is impossible, in my view—and I have said so before in the House—that the Dominions shall have complete freedom as to whether or not they shall come into any future war. I realise that they have the power to say that they will remain neutral, but if that were done, no effective Imperial Derence could be organised. We must, in order to be able to build up Imperial Defence, know that throughout the Empire we can use such bases as are there, and that is why I am so concerned about this agreement with Ceylon in regard to defence. Surely to goodness, Ceylon would not object to leasing us such bases as are necessary from her. Why should she object? It would be for her benefit, and for the benefit of this country and the remainder of the Empire, as well as the rest of the world that the bases should be there, be up to date and be used by us in the event of war.

It has already been pointed out that the United States have leased bases from us for 99 years in the West Indies. Is that anything which is derogatory to us? In Bermuda, the United States have a great air base leased for 99 years, and she also has similar arrangements with the Philippines because it is necessary for the purposes of defence. Therefore, why should Ceylon object, and why cannot the Government come to an agreement with Ceylon in this matter? The agreement which has been come to is far too illusory. I ask the Colonial Secretary who is to keep the bases in Ceylon up to date. Are we going to do it, or is Ceylon going to do it? What agreement is there on that. Are our forces going to remain in Ceylon, and for how long? There is nothing in the agreement about it, but we must have a specified term, and in order to do that we must have a lease of such bases as are necessary. Only in that way shall we be quite certain that we can utilise the bases in Ceylon which are of the utmost importance in any scheme of defence in the Far East in the event of aggression in the future. Therefore, I beg the Under-Secretary, who is to reply, to enlighten the House in this matter. I ask the Government if they will go further into this matter and see if it is not possible to obtain by agreement a base, or such bases as are necessary, in Ceylon in the matter of Imperial Defence.

I do not propose to follow the hon. and gallant Member along the interesting path of considering our defences overseas as they affect this country, except to say that, although I was glad that the hon. and gallant Member for South Paddington (Vice-Admiral Taylor) offered his good wishes to the Ceylonese people, he seemed to be concerned almost entirely with how the advent of Dominion status to Ceylon would affect this country. I think it would have been more felicitous it he had spent a little time studying the matter from the Ceylonese point of view and how it is going to assist the Ceylonese people. He made some reference to the agreement between this country and America regarding bases in the Caribbean seas. That agreement was freely arrived at in consultation between two equal parties. I do not know whether it is suggested by the hon. and gallant Member that if Ceylon does not agree to the granting of a long lease we shall insist that they do, because if so, it means that we are nullifying the freedom which we have accepted as being a necessity of the Ceylonese people.

If we are giving Ceylon Dominion status, we cannot force that agreement on her. I only trust that negotiations will take place, and that by agreement with Ceylon, we shall get the lease of such bases as are necessary.

I appreciate that, as well as the insistence on the part of the hon. and gallant Gentleman, it must be freely negotiated between Ceylon on the one hand and ourselves on the other. Under those circumstances it seems to me far better to leave the matter where it is—

No.

—because these are delicate matters, in the hands of the Secretary of State and his colleagues in the Cabinet, who will do their utmost along the lines of mutual agreement to reach a conclusion satisfactory to both parties. If there is no conclusion satisfactory to us, what does that mean? We shall have to do without the naval, military and aerial advantage of that particular island and we shall have to devise our defences accordingly. That is the implication of the freedom which we now recognise Ceylon is entitled to enjoy.

Remarks have been made by an hon. Member regarding the necessity of receiving the consent of the other Dominions to this proposal. I could not quite follow what the hon. Member was really trying to suggest. I intervened to ask whether it meant that we could not go forward with this venture until apparently all the Dominions had given their assent. It is our responsibility, in the first place, to recognise the right of Ceylon to Dominion status. It is not the responsibility of the other Dominions. Therefore, I cannot understand why there should be such anxiety as to whether there is assent on the part of the other Dominions. It seems entirely irrelevant. It is certainly encouraging to us all to realise that another Dominion is about to rise to its full stature, and I entirely agree with what the Secretary of State said earlier, that this is an answer to those critics in any part of the world who still allege that we are hypnotised and obsessed by imperialism, and that whatever we do has some ulterior imperial ambition or sinister aim. I am more than content to believe that this act on the part of the Government is the implementation of those principles of freedom which are part of the tradition and policy of the party to which I belong. I cannot see how anyone can criticise it. India and Pakistan have become independent and now Ceylon follows. This could be a great example to the world of the sincerity of the intentions of our Cabinet.

I may also say that the Government, in taking this step, have now apparently the support of the Members opposite. We rather miss the intervention of the right hon. Member for Woodford (Mr. Churchill) today, who generally gives us an entertaining, romantic exhibition, together with numerous warnings about dreadful possibilities in the future. He is absent on this occasion and so are any of those who agree with his particular sentiments. I wonder whether, if next year the Ceylonese decide to opt out—I do not desire that they should, but I wonder if they will—we shall receive warnings of dreadful happenings and frightful occurrences? That possibility has not yet been reached, but if next year Ceylon did, by its own decision, under the Statute of Westminster, decide to go out of the British Commonwealth, while I should profoundly regret it and would do all that I could in my amateur way to prevent it, we have to face the fact that it would be a free choice and we should not be able to pass any baneful criticism on them.

Reference has been made to the fact that Ceylon is a much happier country than its great neighbours India and Pakistan. That seems to be true, but on the other hand even Ceylon is not free from communal differences. There are differences between the Tamils and the Sinhalese and between the Buddhist faith practised by the majority and the other faiths, including Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity and a certain amount of Mohammedanism It is encouraging to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Swindon (Mr. T. Reid) and others say that there is nothing of the bitterness and hostility that prevail elsewhere. Reference was made by the hon. Member for Hornsey (Mr. Gammans) to the existence of Communism inside Ceylon. That apparently exercised him very deeply indeed. It does not exercise me. I am not a Communist and I reject that policy completely, but if it is the decision of the Ceylonese people to approach Communism it is their own decision, and it will counterbalance any tendency to communalism which may exist in that island, for there is one thing to be said for Communism as can be said for Christianity, Socialism and about other secular and religious faiths, that it does cut clean across racial and ethnical divisions. It is all to the good, therefore, that there does exist a movement to counterbalance a tendency on the part of communities to segregate themselves from other communities, often with fatal results.

Is the hon. Member now eulogising Communism and the practice of Communism and saying that there is nothing the matter with it because it absorbs people of all different races and creeds? Is that his argument?

I am afraid the hon. and gallant Member has not quite followed the intention of my observations. I have already said that I am not a Communist and that I reject the Communist philosophy as much as I reject the Conservative philosophy; but that whenever any movement, whether it is Conservative, Imperialist, Communist, Socialist, Christian or otherwise arises that cuts through racial divisions it has a counterbalancing tendency. It tends to prevent communities from separating themselves from other communities merely on the ground of ethnological or racial difference. If there is a Communist movement in Ceylon it helps in some measure to prevent the spread of pure communalism which is based upon no ideological or theoretical movement, but upon the fact that members of communities speak the same language or belong to the same race.

As the hon. Member is dealing with this point, would he not agree that, historically, Communism, wherever it has existed, has always created a strong racial movement in opposition to itself, such as Fascism?

Now we are beginning to tread a rather dangerous path. We shall get a long way from the Bill if we begin to inquire what Communism means.

I was only going to inform the hon. Member who interrupted me that I do not intend to fall into the trap which he has set, because I should be very severely reprimanded. On other occasions we may be able to discuss the matter. I hope most earnestly that the ideas and ideals that move the people of Ceylon are not racial but theoretical. It is a tragic fact in the world at the present time that so many people are aggregating themselves together not on the basis of a common purpose, a common thought or a common need, but because they happen to be born into an allegedly similar race. We have seen where that kind of thing leads us.

On this occasion we seem to be gathered together to bid farewell to Ceylon. I am sure that no hon. Member intends to do so in a patronising manner, or to indulge in exhortations and homilies which suggest that we think of Ceylon rather as an inferior who has been trained by us and is now to have a last word from its elderly mentors. Rather are we agreed that Ceylon is now one with us and is equal with us, and is going out upon a great adventure. She is going to prove to the world that the freedom she enjoys and the life which she is now to develop politically and economically is for her a great opportunity. We trust that Ceylon and this country will remain true and deep friends and will set an example to the world of an association based not upon force, but upon co-operation, mutual regard, common interest and friendship between our two peoples.

There can seldom have been a more vivid contrast between two speeches from the benches opposite than that between the speech of the hon. Member for Swindon (Mr. T. Reid) and the speech of the hon. Member for Mile End (Mr. Piratin). In the first, we heard what the House always appreciates, the speech of an hon. Member who knew his subject and knew intimately the territory which he was traversing in his speech. In the other, we heard an irresponsible and irrelevant stream of fallacies, produced partly through ignorance and partly for the purpose of stirring up propaganda in that charming island which I also know and to which we all so sincerely wish well. The hon. Member used the usual argument of the one-way flow of money. Whatever small sums may have come out of Ceylon they have been more than counter-balanced by the large sums of money which this country has devoted to the development of Ceylon.

The hon. Member tried, in a spurious way, to indicate that this country had plundered Ceylon in the past. I ask any fair-minded Ceylonese or Britisher whether the position of that island today is superior or inferior to the condition in which we found it 150 years ago. The hon. Member then said that the self-government which is now being granted with the consent of all parties in this House has come about only as the result as a demand from those people, but surely the very fact that the people were vocal enough to unite in making a demand shows the very advance which he claims that we have retarded. Nobody is going to thrust upon a colony self-government before it has asked for it. The fact that this agitation has lasted for so very short a time shows with what good Will the people of this country have met the legitimate Ceylonese view.

One of the forms of bulk purchase which this Government pursue with considerable assiduity is, I am afraid, the bulk purchase of pigs in pokes. There was India, then Burma, and now there is Ceylon, only a relatively small pig, but in a very obscure poke, in my view. By that I do not mean to say that this Measure should not be passed, but that I believe that both the Ceylonese and this Government are trying to see into a very obscure future. Nevertheless, we are all combined to give a blessing to that pig. I want to join in, and to associate myself, with the ceremony of blessing. The situation is obscure, because after the elections so recently held we find that the balance of power is held by a party Which calls itself the Independent Party and whose political views and future actions are probably not even known to themselves. The future, therefore, holds a situation which nobody can clearly foresee at the present time.

A great deal has been said already about the agreements which the Government have negotiated. We have heard a great deal about the agreement on defence and I will not take that matter any further, but I would like to ask the Minister whether there was any agreement upon trading matters. I gather that there was no agreement, and I cannot see why that should be so. There is nothing derogatory in asking that certain conditions as to trade should be part and parcel of the Bill, in order to protect the trade of the people of this country. I have heard hon. Members opposite pretend that we have no responsibility for the trade of the people of this country. Of course we have responsibility to the people of that island, which we have tried to meet in the Bill. We have an equal responsibility to the traders of this country, and there should have been an agreement in order to prevent such things as discrimination. I do not think discrimination will come about in the near future. I have just as much confidence as hon. Gentlemen opposite have in those who are likely to take charge in Ceylon in the near future, but we cannot see very far ahead. The Government have a duty and a responsibility to protect the trade of their nationals. They do it in their nationalisation Bills in Which non-discrimination is incorporated in certain very reasonable Clauses which are inserted in those Bills.

At the risk of offending an hon. Member who has spoken, I propose to give just a little advice, for what that advice may be worth, from an ordinary back bencher to a young and new constitution. Recently, Pandit Nehru stated that the British Empire was fading away. I beg the people of Ceylon to realise that there never was a greater fallacy. People have said that before on many occasions. Napoleon thought we were vulnerable, the Kaiser said we were insignificant and Hitler thought we were decadent; but I can assure them that, as Mark Twain said of his own obituary, the report of our demise has been very greatly exaggerated.

Does the hon. and gallant Gentleman realise that the content of Pandit Nehru's remark was to suggest not that we were decadent but that to increase our moral stature we had sacrificed our purely imperialistic ideals?

What he meant and what he said may be at loggerheads one with the other, but I can only read one meaning into the words and that is that the British Empire is fading away. In my ignorance I interpreted the Pandit's remark in this way, and there may be many others in Ceylon who will interpret it similarly.

He suggested that the Commonwealth was rising and taking the Empire's place.

He ought to have gone on to say that. Obviously he is wrong and the hon. Gentleman is right for shortly afterwards Pandit Nehru accepted Dominion status for Hindustan, and there we have it.

I wish the people of Ceylon to realise how closely their destiny is bound up with the British Commonwealth. Neither in defence nor in trade can they stand alone. It is not often that the kitten brings anything back to the old cat, but in this case Ceylon can bring something to Britain. We are her best market and we can give her the protection without which she would certainly become a prey to many plundering nations in the future. If she has been led to think that there will be any advantage in seceding from the British Commonwealth she will be suffering from a wild hallucination which may cost her dear. I wish this lovely island success. Ceylon is embarking on perilous seas. Children always want to grow up, but grown-up people often wish that they were once again children. Ceylon has grown up now, and I only hope that she finds it a blessed state.

I rise at this seemingly unfashionable hour to add one word on the Defence Agreement and to hope that the Under-Secretary may give us a little amplification. I think it is agreed on all sides that we are quite right in not confining our thoughts to the defence of Ceylon. As the hon. Member for Hornsey (Mr. Gammans) said, we have to remember the vital position of Ceylon with regard to our Imperial air and sea communications, and we have also to remember the slightly different position of Ceylon at the moment. During the last year we have lost the hold we had before—we may now have a different hold because of Dominion status—on the Maldive Islands, the Laccadive Islands, the Andaman Isles and the Nicobars, and there is also a different position in Burma. I feel that when this agreement was considered there may have been three approaches to it. The first may have been, as certain hon. Members have suggested, that there should be a period of years of lease; the second may have been that there should be some warning period before either of the two Powers could break the agreement; and the third was what is in the Bill.

In my opinion the agreement that we have got is right, as it does not make any suggestion that it is not a permanent agreement. In such an agreement between independent Powers, as we shall be, the key words are "in their mutual interests," which occurs in paragraph 1, and also the words, "mutually agreed" which occur many times. I presume that there will be some sub-agreements because it says:

"The Government of the United Kingdom may base such naval and air forces and maintain such land forces in Ceylon as may be required for these purposes, and as may be mutually agreed."

There will be some sub-agreement on that. It is in the case of the lease of land that we must have some security of tenure so that we know if we are to spend a lot of money that we shall have that land for a particular time. It would be quite ridiculous for us to build a barracks on a certain piece of land and for the Ceylon Government then to decide that they want to build a hospital there; we might want to build an airfield and Ceylon might say that she wants it for a prison or for something else; they may be rather extreme cases, but they serve to illustrate my point. I wish to emphasise the point made by the hon. and gallant Member for Hythe (Brigadier Mackeson), and that is that we cannot maintain a large naval or air base without the good will of the people in that country. Many reasons will come to mind; but one is the question of local labour, which for air and naval bases is most important. Before I sit down may I join in the general support that has been given to the Bill, and add my good wishes to those already expressed?

I am very glad that there has been general unanimity over this Bill—at all events, in the main—and I trust that nothing I shall say will introduce a discordant note into these most harmonious proceedings and thus upset the hon. and gallant Member for Hythe (Brigadier Mackeson). We are today taking part in a truly historic occasion. This is the first Colonial non-European people to arrive at independence within the Commonwealth, and I feel that the speeches on all sides, with very few exceptions, have shown adequate recognition of the importance that this House attaches to this step in the history of Ceylon. I have been fortunate in having made two visits to Ceylon, and on both occasions I was charmed both by the beauty of the island and by the hospitality and grace of the people. The world will, I am sure, take notice of the type of evolution that is to be found in the British Commonwealth, and among certain nations which have not always had a complete understanding of our ways, I hope that their misunderstandings will be rectified.

The hon. Member for Hornsey (Mr. Gammans) raised the question of economic interests in Ceylon, particularly of British merchants. That matter was also raised later in the Debate by the hon. and gallant Member for Central Glasgow (Colonel Hutchison). The point is that this question has never been raised; we have had no submissions from any interests whatsoever in Ceylon, and it was stated in the "Financial Times" for the 17th November:

"Neither the Ceylon Association of London, which represents the bulk of British investors in Ceylon, nor the local British business community, have asked for any safeguards in the coming constitutional changes."

May I interrupt the hon. Gentleman to say that it is largely because of lack of time? If people cannot get Bills and agreements to study, they cannot possibly come to conclusions as to what they want. Will he consider protecting these interests in Ceylon in the Bill as it goes through?

There has not been a great shortage of time. It is true that the actual Bill has not been long before the House, but this question has been in the air for some considerable time, and if any representations were desired by the people of Ceylon so that any implementation of those representations could be put in the Bill or the agreements, they would have been made long ago. As the local community is perfectly satisfied that there should be no special mention of them—in other words they have perfect faith in the goodwill of the Government of Ceylon—we see no reason why we should take any steps when no steps are desired.

I apologise for interrupting again, but the hon. Gentleman will appreciate that the Secretary of State promised that agreements would come up just before or concurrently with the Bill. No doubt relying on those agreements—which any person would have imagined would cover the trading position—voices were still which might otherwise have been vocal.

That is entirely fallacious; no voices are still if there are interests which the voices desire to protect. Such a declaration of the Secretary of State would have aroused those voices if there were any voices there, and they would very soon have made their representations. However, we feel confident, with the business community, that their interests will be protected in the same way as they always have been by the good will of the Government of Ceylon.

The next point that arose was also made by the hon. Member for Hornsey—lack of time. We must apologise to some extent to the House for this. There has been a very short time, but this has not been our fault; indeed, we have been under great pressure to get this Measure through this House before the Ceylon Parliament meets, which it is due to do on the 25th, and we have been asked by them to get, at all events, the Second Reading through this House. We had hoped to get it through further stages before that date, but that has not been possible. It will be realised that the agreements could not be signed in Ceylon by the Government until the Bill had been presented, so that also has had a concertina effect upon the time available. I would ask hon. Members, therefore, to excuse us for what in fact we could not avoid.

With reference to defence, which was raised by a number of hon. Members from rather different points of view, I quite appreciate the difficulties and doubts of hon. Members because this is an important point. Our aim and that of the Ceylon Government all through these negotiations has been to arrive at a settlement which will carry out the wishes of both parties which are these: that we are both members of a family, and when you are members of a family it is the spirit more than anything else that counts. As the hon. and gallant Member for Hythe said, we felt on balance that it would be quite improper in an agreement between members of a family to put a time limit to this agreement.

The hon. Member said "both parties." What about Australia and New Zealand? Will he develop that a little?

They are all members of the Commonwealth; they are all members of the family, so to speak. We have no time limit agreement with Australia, Canada or New Zealand and, similarly, we do not want any definite time limit agreement with Ceylon.

Is it not a fact that we have responsibility, and not the other Dominions?

Yes, we have responsibility because, up till now, this particular country has been the responsibility of the British Parliament and the United Kingdom Government. Another point I would like hon. Members to realise is that the Ceylon Government is as anxious for the protection of the Commonwealth interests as we are. They will not take any action which would in any way cripple or interfere with the general interests of the Commonwealth. If war broke out, I feel certain that Ceylon would be one of the first, or probably the first, to come into any protection of the Commonwealth that might be necessary. It is quite unreal to talk about countries such as have been mentioned because, in those cases, the agreements have been made with foreign countries and, naturally, there had to be a time limit. Every one of the examples mentioned was of an agreement made either by the British Government or by some other Government with a foreign Power. Surely the hon. and gallant Member for South Paddington (Vice-Admiral Taylor) will not suggest that an agreement of this kind could be put on the same basis as an agreement between say, the Philippines and the United States?

We and Ceylon, like the United States and this country are also of one family—

No.

indicated dissent.

The hon. Member for East Coventry (Mr. Crossman) shakes his head. If we are not one family on the question of peace and war, then the future peace of the world is in a very bad state and cannot be relied upon.

We are all members of one family.

The hon. and gallant Member must not tempt me into indiscretions. I am easily tempted and I might get out of Order. I want to make it quite clear that with this particular part of the Defence Agreement and most of the discussion has been aroused by this part of one agreement we must not see that in isolation. It is part of the general agreement arrived at between the Ceylon Government and ourselves, and therefore it is quite unrealistic to pick it out like a plum from a plum pudding, hold it up, and say, "This is undesirable." It forms part of the pudding as a whole and, when we take the pudding, we must take all the plums with it and not isolate one.

On that point, may I ask one other question? Presumably, the bases will be kept up in Ceylon and not allowed to go to rack and ruin. Is this country to keep up those bases, or will Ceylon keep them up? They must be kept up, and I imagine Ceylon cannot afford to do so.

I do not know why we are never taken at our surface value, or any agreement is not taken at surface value. It is quite obvious from the agreement, and it is a fact, that we are going to maintain the bases, and the bases will be kept up. No one has ever suggested anything to the contrary.

The hon. Member said so.

I say so now, and the agreement says so; at least it says nothing to the contrary. The bases will be kept up, we will keep them up, and everything necessary will be done for the defence of the Commonwealth. This is a mutual agreement between Ceylon and ourselves.

The next point which was raised by the hon. Member for Hornsey is one which was suggested to Mr. Speaker, and with which I would not wish to interfere. We are making a present to Ceylon, as indeed to all legislative councils in the Colonies, of a piece of oak from Westminster Hall, and they will have it made up into whatever form they like. That will be a little gesture on our part to the various Colonial Governments.

I hope this does not exclude a much more elaborate gesture than that. Can we not have the oak made up into a Speaker's chair and not give a mere piece of firewood?

I cannot answer for Mr. Speaker; I can only say what the Government are doing. As has been mentioned by the hon. Member for Swindon (Mr. T. Reid), the Second Clerk-Assistant of this House has gone out, for the second time, and is rendering very valuable service to the Parliament of Ceylon. That is a very fine omen of the close association which will be continued, I am sure, between the Mother of Parliaments, and the Parliament in Colombo. I wish to thank the hon. Member for Swindon for his speech, which derived from great knowledge and experience, and which will give great pleasure to the people of Ceylon.

I commend this Bill to the House. It turns a new page in history, and gives to the Sinhalese people, and other races in Ceylon, the opportunity of making a great contribution, not merely to Commonwealth affairs, but to all matters relating to races in the Orient. In some countries in the Orient affairs are now in a somewhat troubled condition, and I feel that the stability and political wisdom of the people of Ceylon can have a very great effect upon peoples in other countries where that political stability is not at present apparent.

I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."

The purpose of this small Bill is to increase the funds required to meet the cost of the temporary housing programme. Hon. Members may recall that at present the sums which the Treasury may issue out of the Consolidated Fund for defraying the cost of manufacturing and erecting temporary houses is limited to a total of £200 million, the original sum of £150 million provided by the Housing (Temporary Accommodation) Act, 1944, hav ing been increased by £50 million by Section 5 of the Building Materials and Housing Act, 1945. This short Bill provides for the total to be increased by £20 million to £220 million.

Before dealing with the Bill, it would be well if I give the House some broad outline of the scope of the programme, and the position now reached. The number of temporary houses allocated to local authorities by my right hon. Friends the Minister of Health and the Secretary of State for Scotland is 156,667, 124,511 for England and Wales, and the remainder, 32,156, for Scotland. Of that total some 54,000 are of the aluminium type, for which the Ministry of Supply undertake responsibility for manufacture and erection. The Ministry of Works were responsible for the remaining 102,000, made up of some seven principal types. The number of temporary houses still remaining to be completed at the end of last month was 24,184. Of those, some 17,500 were aluminium, houses, which should be completed in England and Scotland by May next year. There remain something like 1,900 of other types in England and Wales, and 4,700 in Scotland. In England and Wales the work should virtually be completed by the end of next month. In Scotland, however, they are unlikely to be finished before the end of next summer.

The total cost of the temporary housing programme is now estimated to be £217 million, but in order to cover contingencies, it has been considered advisable to seek approval for £220 million. The estimate of £217 million represents, in effect, an increase of about £39 million, compared with the estimate of the cost of the programme prepared two years ago when the White Paper on temporary housing was published in October, 1945. I have to explain to the House how those increases have taken place. Four main factors are involved. The first is the increase in wages rates, which have increased by 11 per cent. in the last two years, and in the cost of materials and fitments, particularly steel fittings, which are necessary. These together have involved an increase of about £11 million on site preparation and house erection, and on the supply of the fitments for rather more than 100,000 houses provided directly by my Ministry.

The second substantial increase in respect of these houses is in the cost of distribution and transport. This amounts to about £7,500,000. The increase was due very largely to the prolongation of the programme combined with unbalanced production during 1946. When the original estimate was prepared it was expected that, except for the aluminium houses, the temporary housing programme would be completed by the end of 1946, but it is running on until the end of 1947 in England and Wales, and for some months longer in Scotland. One of the principal reasons for the extension of the programme has been the difficulty experienced by local authorities in completing the preparation of sites. The part played by local authorities in the temporary housing programme was to select and acquire sites, to construct the roads and sewers, and to provide the main supply services.

I am convinced that the local authorities played their part with considerable energy and enthusiasm. In carrying out their part of the task they had very many obstacles to overcome. In the first place, many of them were short of technical staff in the early stages of the programme. That tended to cause considerable delay in the preparation of plans and specifications at a time when rapid progress was essential if the programme was to be fulfilled within the space of time that had been decided upon. As a general rule, the sites were not readily available. In given local authorities, areas had already been earmarked for permanent housing, so that new sites had to be selected and acquired for temporary housing. They were not always easily obtainable, particularly in the built-up industrial areas to which a very large proportion of these houses had been allocated. That necessarily gave rise to delays.

The development of sites after they had been acquired was hampered in many cases by shortages of labour and of materials essential in site preparation. At the same time, the difficulties of the local authorities were also increased by the fact that as the permanent housing programme got under way they were undertaking concurrently the work of site development for both permanent and temporary houses. The Ministry of Works, for its part, met with similar difficulties, in many cases due to shortages of labour, in the part which they had to play in the preparation of foundation slabs and other site work necessary for the houses.

Whilst those delays were taking place, the production of house structures and of fixtures and fittings had gone ahead. I do not say that we had got into a fully balanced production. The temporary houses are made up of between 2,000 and 3,000 separate parts and fitments. The achievement of an exactly balanced production of six or seven different types of houses would have been a formidable task even in the most favourable circumstances, and circumstances immediately after the war and during 1946 were far from favourable. There were continual shortages of material, particularly of steel, copper, timber, plywood and lining material, and production was difficult at a time when factories were changing over from wartime to peacetime production. In addition, there were labour shortages in the factories. In the autumn of 1946, we had achieved an even balance of production. That resulted in a very rapid improvement in the rate at which houses were completed, but the winter of 1946 and early 1947 added to our difficulties.

The accumulation of stocks during 1946 made it necessary to take over a large number of airfields for storage and distribution purposes. This system of prefabricated house construction is not the easiest and cheapest way of going ahead with the production of houses if the sites are not readily available so that the components can go from factory to site quickly and readily. There was great delay in site preparation coinciding with the time at which the improved production was taking place, and we had to take over airfields for storage purposes. They were what were available to us, and they were not necessarily suitable for the job. Many of them were distant from railways and main roads and the cost of loading was further increased by the distances between individual buildings and hangars. Labour, including prisoners of war, had to be brought to the sites at additional expense. Also, there was a good deal of unavoidable double handling.

This expansion of storage and distribution organisation, and the retention of some of the centres for a year or more longer than had been expected, considerably upset the calculations in regard to costs. In addition to increasing the cost of storage and distribution, the frequent shortages of materials and fitments, as well as the shortage of building labour, caused delay in house erection and other work on the sites. This involved increased costs in the carrying out of that work. It is calculated that the extra expense on this account will be something like £8 million. That is necessarily a provisional estimate since most of the site erection contracts have yet to be finally settled.

The fourth increase in the cost of the temporary housing programme is on account of the aluminium temporary houses, and this increase amounts to about £13,500,000. It is estimated now that each of the aluminium houses will cost £1,610. It was always known that the aluminium house would be more expensive than other types of temporary house, but one of the principal reasons for embarking on the project was to provide employment for the light alloy and aircraft manufacturing industries, which had been so greatly expanded during the war, and, at the same time, to help in the change over from wartime to peacetime production. Until the factories got into production on the aluminium houses, there was little data on which to base an estimate of the cost of the work. The form of construction that was being undertaken was novel, and the technique of producing houses on a moving belt system had never before been attempted.

Experience soon made it evident that the cost of the materials had been considerably under-estimated, and the increase on this account had been accentuated as well by the rising cost of fitments. In addition, the estimate of labour costs and overheads was far too low. The cost of site preparation had also increased for the same reason as I gave in connection with the types of ordinary temporary houses for which my Ministry was responsible. The aluminium house is the most highly prefabricated of all our temporary houses, and is wholly factory-built. It is erected on the site in a very few hours, and the saving in building labour thereby effected has, in my opinion, fully justified the inclusion of the aluminium house in the temporary housing programme. Such, therefore, are the explanations of the increased amount which is asked for in this Bill.

Will the right hon. Gentleman allow me? I understood him to say that the total increase amounted to £39 million. Unless I have got the figures wrong, the detailed figures which the Minister has given appear to result in a total of £40 million. It may be that there is a misunderstanding on this side of the House, but it would be convenient if we could have the figures checked.

There is no large difference between £39 million and £40 million in this sense, that if we take the rounded-off figures, the other items which we leave out will very quickly make the difference between £39 million and £40 million, and all I have attempted to give is round figures, so that I should be able to say that I had dealt with the four main directions where this increase has taken place.

The completion of this programme is within sight, and, when it is finished, 156,000 families will have been provided with a home. They will have been provided with a home which, for a great many of them, is far superior to anything which they have enjoyed before. That is the almost unanimous testimony on the part of people inhabitating these houses who express satisfaction with the fitments and general appurtenances provided for them. This programme has fulfilled a very important part in assisting local authorities during the time when they were getting under way with their work for permanent housing, and it provided very welcome shelter for the people who were in need. It is now practically coming to an end. There is no desire, I am certain, on the part of any of us, to extend the temporary housing programme, but it has played a Very important part in these first three years of tackling our problem, and, therefore, for that reason, I am certain that it has been well worth carrying out. This Bill is designed to give us that extra amount of money for the completion and rounding off of the whole programme, and I hope the House will agree to give it a Second Reading.

The right hon. Gentleman has just paid a tribute to the part which the temporary housing programme has played in our housing programme generally, and I am sure that all of us will agree with him on that, but I cannot fail to remember at this moment the remarks which were made about that programme by his right hon. Friend the Minister of Health in other days, when he spoke about the dreadful legacy that was left to him by the previous Government. We are glad, at least, to know that that temporary programme has played a most important part.

The right hon. Gentleman, in opening his remarks, said that this was a small Bill. The Bill may be small in its content of paper, but it does get rid of a considerable sum of money, and it seems to me that, when we consider that we are discussing, at 2 o'clock on a Friday afternoon, a matter of £20 million, there is no doubt that a tremendous change has come about since other days, when a Measure of this nature would have been debated at very great length indeed. As I listened to the explanations of the right hon. Gentleman, I could not help wondering what he would have thought if a contractor had presented him with a proportionate bill for a new house that he was building. I think he would have had a very considerable amount to say about it, and I am afraid that his contractor would not have got away very lightly. It is, indeed, a matter of anxiety to note the way in which the costs of this programme have increased from time to time, and I would like to recall some figures so that the House may have them in mind clearly in considering this matter.

It was at the beginning of 1944 that the Government decided that a temporary housing programme was necessary in order to fill in the gap, and it was on 1st August that the House gave a Second Reading to the Housing (Temporary Accommodation) Bill, which continued its course until 26th September of that year. All that that Bill did was to authorise a programme of temporary housing up to an expenditure of £150 million. It did nothing more than that. It was mentioned during the Debate that the cost of the house might be about £600. The next step after that was the White Paper of the Coalition Government in March, 1945 (Cmd. 6609), and that merely stated the Government's intention to go ahead with the expenditure of £150 million, and that the programme would continue until the allocations, which then numbered 145,000 houses, had been made and completed. In the Debate at that time, the Minister of Health said that the cost of the temporary house had increased from the original figure, but was expected to be below £800, while the cost of the aluminium house would be about £900.

A further step was the White Paper of the present Government in October, 1945 (Cmd. 6696), where it was stated that the Government, on coming into office, had decided to have a re-estimate made of the cost of this programme. It was found that an additional £268 had to be added to the previous cost. There we have the process—originally it was about £600, from there it went up to a figure just below £800, and from there, in October, 1945, to, approximately, £1,100. The cost of the aluminium house had gone up from £900 to £1,365. At that time, 165,000 houses had been allocated. In the White Paper, the Government laid down in detail a programme for 158,483 houses at a cost of £185 million. Then they were given the additional £50 million to which the right hon. Gentleman referred.

The point I want to make is that while, of course, I know that the Minister for the time being is responsible, here we have the Department for which he is responsible producing all these various estimates, one after the other. I am certain that the estimate they gave us in the White Paper in October, 1945, took into account everything that could possibly be thought of. It was very detailed. There had been a very detailed examination, and the detailed programme was submitted to us. I have no doubt that the Government, when they got the £200 million, thought that they were amply covered for a programme of that size; but now we have another £20 million added. It is very disturbing, and the more so in view of the fact that the right hon. Gentleman himself has often said that one of the real needs of our time that must be attended to is to cut down the cost of housing. Yet here we have him asking for another £20 million. Is that the end of it, or is it not? The right hon. Gentleman said that it seemed doubtful whether this was the end. Are we going to have any more estimates of a like kind brought before us from time to time, or is this final? I hope that we may get an answer to that question this afternoon.

The right hon. Gentleman has given us the various factors which have lead to this increased expenditure. The first one, he told us, was the increase in wages and in the, cost of materials and fitments, and that that would amount to about £11 million. Here I would like to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether, in his opinion, the labour force employed was employed with the highest efficiency. Quite recently, his Ministry issued a document called "Production Building and Civilian Engineering Supplement No.1." In Table No. 7 of that document there is shown the method of estimating labour and plant requirements for a site containing 50 permanent houses. One of the things estimated for is erection and finishing. It is said that a site of 50 houses could be completed, so far as erection and finishing are concerned, in 552 man-weeks. That seems to work out at 11 man-weeks per house.

Let us look at the average of all houses that have been completed in the first six months of this year. There were, on average, 847 completed each week during the first six months of this year, and the labour force employed was 31,430. On the calculation of the Ministry of Works themselves, that number of men should have produced 2,800 houses a week, and, even taking into account the fact that all the sites were not for 50 houses, there is a very great difference between 2,800 houses a week, with a labour force of that size, and the average of 847 houses which was actually attained. From these figures it seems that the labour force has not been economically employed, that it has been far too great, and, therefore, that the £11 million should never have been incurred.

The right hon. Gentleman again went back and talked of a matter which his right hon. Friend the Minister of Education spoke of many months ago—at least 18 months ago—when he drew the attention of the House to the fact that there were between 2,500 and 3,000 different components in each house. He pointed to the difficulty of collecting these altogether and bringing them forward at the right time. Today the Minister said that it was a formidable task. I agree with him, but it is a task which has been accomplished by housing contractors over a long period of years. But the point to which I wish to draw the attention of the House is that the right hon. Gentleman, who was then Minister of Works, said in July, 1946, that an organisation had now been produced which, he hoped, would get over the difficulty. Yet today, we have the right hon. Gentleman drawing our attention to these difficulties. It seems to me that the organisation ought to have been able to function better than it has.

In this matter, the Ministries have had complete charge of every operation; everything has been in their hands. And yet we have this tremendous additional bill. Apart from the manufacture which they have certainly contracted out, every single thing has been in their hands. They have been the prime contractors for the whole of this operation. If they have fallen down, it is their own fault. And they have fallen down very badly because, after having recalculated the whole thing in October, 1945, and, as I have said, made very generous allowances for every possible contingency, to add an additional 10 per cent. on the amount granted is very considerable. It is all very well for the right hon. Gentleman to finish up on the sentimental note that at least 156,000 families have been given new accommodation, and better acommodation than they ever had before. I agree with him. That is something for which we are all very thankful, but that is no excuse for the enormous cost at which that accommodation has been provided.

When one comes to deal with the aluminium house at £1,610, one really is amazed. I should like to have had a statement, such as the right hon. Gentleman has given us this afternoon, issued before this Debate took place, because the right hon. Gentleman will appreciate that it was very difficult indeed, during the course of his speech, to assimilate all the points he was making, and, if I may say so—and I am not saying it in a nasty way—all the excuses which he has brought forward. It would have been much easier if we could have had a short explanatory paper issued previously. All I can say is that I am amazed at the very great increases which the right hon. Gentleman has submitted to us, and I am not at all satisfied—because one cannot be without a close examination—that the money has indeed been well spent. I hope that some of my hon. Friends will take the matter further than I have been able to take it, but my sentiment in regard to this matter is that we are receiving too little for far too much.

I would like, first, to thank my right hon. Friend for his very frank and lucid statement. No one envies him his present task, but I, like hon. Members opposite, am very deeply concerned to know why this aluminium house has been selected. I had something to do with temporary houses in the early stages, and I remember that we in this House were frequently derided on the question of providing temporary houses. We were only trying to provide tem porary shelter, which was to have a very plain architecture associated with it, the hope being that this type of shelter would disappear at a fairly early date. I remember having something to do with the steel house. Why it was abandoned I do not know, but I would inform the House that there were discussions with the steel industry. The steel industry were prepared to provide the necessary steel to build 100,000 houses which were to cost no more than £800 each. From time to time a statement was made in this House on the subject. The iron and steel industry and the Ministry of Supply were consulted. Everyone had been informed of the importance of building temporary houses, and the steel industry agreed that there was sufficient steel to make 100,000 houses. I repeat that statement in case there should be any dubiety about it.

Is my hon. Friend referring to the Portal house?

I am referring to the Portal house. Unfortunately, that house, which was to have cost £800, has been abandoned and now we are to have this aluminium house costing the ridiculous price of £1,610. While I was connected with this task, we were frequently asked to consider an aluminium house. We asked what was the cost of the aluminium. No cost was ever agreed, but it was always said that we would provide that house as cheaply as we possibly could and very likely at not more than £900. But we were all the time pressing for the cost of the aluminium. No cost was ever given to the House or to any Minister, so far as I know. Now we get this ridiculous figure of £1,610 and more, as the cost of the aluminium house.

The building industry have a legitimate right to complain about the indecision and frustration which they have experienced from time to time. There is now a proposal to cut down building by a certain amount; I regret that the figure was ever mentioned, but it has been mentioned, and the figure is £100 million. That is to be the extent to which certain building materials are to be cut, and the building industry have legitimately complained. Permanent houses can be built cheaper than £1,610 per house. They can be built in brick and they will last for 80, go or 100 years. Yet we are talking about cutting down the building programme, and builders all over the country are very uneasy. The Government are certainly not to be congratulated upon the way in which they have handled this task.

Let me deal with the question of the aluminium house in relation to the other seven types. Why building trade labour has been employed in its manufacture instead of in erecting permanent houses, I do not know. I would like to know. To what extent such labour is employed in the manufacture and erection of the aluminium house I do not know, but the house is now being constructed and, as the Minister says, there are so many thousand parts used in its construction. I suppose a screw or a latch on a window could be regarded as a part. I cannot say without calculating, how many parts there are in an ordinary house, but I would like to know by what number the parts in an aluminium house exceed those in an ordinary house. If this house has been constructed on the belt system, why has there not been a reduction in the cost, instead of an increase? One would think that system would have produced a degree of efficiency and output which would have reduced the cost. But £1,610 for a temporary house! I do not know how temporary it is going to be. I know that when I am riding about I have to get out of the way to let the ugly things pass me. I have seen them on lorries. On one occasion we had to try one on a "Queen Mary" lorry. It was tested up hill and down dale to discover how many pieces would be shaken out of place when it was being taken along our roads. I should have thought it could be provided at a much cheaper price, and that is the main question which I am raising today.

I am not going to vote against this Bill, but I am very sorry to think that the Ministry of Works have agreed to abandon what was a more reasonable, cheaper and better type to build. My friend Lord Portal, who was very interested in this matter, and I worked together on this temporary house because we wanted to provide some shelter for the people. We never intended that it should be a permanent home. I agree that the appointments in the house were of a superior character to anything which had been installed before.

With regard to the other seven types, it was wrong to agree on those. A temporary house ought to be temporary, and there ought to be one plan for it. Time and time again I have fought in this House to get agreement on one type, but the interests which were so powerful came along and tried to get other types of temporary shelter erected. As a practical man who knows something about the origination of this idea and of the steps which have been taken to perfect it, I say that the Government should not have agreed to other types of temporary house. Instead of the temporary house costing between £800 and £900 at the maximum, it is now costing £1,610 for an aluminium house. I do not know how long it will last. Perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary will tell us later how long he expects it to last. Personally, I would like to see all temporary houses pulled down as soon as possible. I would not attribute the cost of the house to the increased cost of wages and materials, to the same extent as the Minister has done, but I know that great difficulty has been experienced with regard to the quantity and quality of labour.

I do not know whether I shall be ruled out of Order, but I hope that at this stage when the Government are considering questions of essential work and the direction of labour, the building trade labourer will be retained. He was never preserved during the war, and this impoverished the industry very much. Unless he is preserved, when the industry gets back to normal production again it will be several years before the supply of building trade labourers with the necessary skill and capacity to do the job will be available. I hope that will be remembered when the Government are directing people, because the building trade labourer is the easiest type to direct, inasmuch as he is said to have no particular craft or designation apart from that of general labourer. I would like the Parliamentary Secretary, if he can, to give us an assurance on this point.

I stand here today criticising, as I feel I must do, the Government for cutting down their building programme, for putting up temporary houses at £1,610 per house when permanent houses can be built cheaper than that, and for cutting down the building labour. How long is this to last? I object very seriously to this cultivation of the aluminium type of house in preference to all the others. We resisted it. Attempts were made to push it on to us. Time after time, month after month, there was a definite move to try to push on to the Ministry of Works acceptance of the aluminium house. In the absence of knowledge of costs we said we would not have anything to do with it. We tried to get the necessary figures in relation to it. I was afraid that once the aluminium houses were started the prices would jump up to such proportions as to be disgusting. Instead of being a substitute for something else, they are costing more than real homes. I hope we shall not go further with this programme; and perhaps by limiting it we shall save expenditure. I hope the building industry will not be neglected as it has been and is being, and not frustrated and hampered in a way which gives rise to a legitimate cause of complaint against the Government.

I cannot help agreeing with a great deal of the criticism which has been made by the hon. Member for East Woolwich (Mr. Hicks). More particularly would I agree with his suggestion that a great deal of the trouble and delay and consequential additional cost has been due to changes in a policy which, in fact, was not properly worked out before the changes were put into effect. I cannot help looking at this so-called little Bill which involves a matter of £39 or £40 million—it does not seem to matter very much to the Minister which it is—with some doubt and a great deal of concern. It is a very serious matter that at this stage this House should be asked in such an off-hand way to approve of a sum of this amount, and to pass it through in a comparatively few Parliamentary minutes without the fullest possible explanation of all the causes which have made it necessary.

I cannot help feeling that one of the chief causes of our troubles—the Minister of Health—is not here today. I cannot imagine why he is not sitting on that Front Bench. All of us in this House remember very well what he said about the temporary housing programme. He has done more than any other man in this country to pour contempt on it. If the Minister at the head of a great Department, which is partly responsible for seeing that this programme is brought into full effect, speaks like that, one cannot help suspecting on fair grounds—I am not attempting to impute unfair grounds—that the full energy of his Department was not thrown into the effort to see that this programme was carried out as quickly and efficiently as possible. When the Minister of Works today speaks of some of the causes for the additional cost—such as the difficulty of getting the necessary material for site preparation, and delays through the upset of the whole of the transport and distribution programme, which, in turn, added to the cost of the temporary houses—I want to know what steps did the Minister of Health himself take to see that local authorities were fully armed and ready prepared with supplies of all necessary materials on the spot? I do not think we can leave the Minister of Health out of this picture. A great many of the causes which were mentioned by the Minister of Works today are directly attributable to the lack of drive shown by the Minister of Health in pushing ahead with the programme.

I turn to some of the other excuses made for the Bill—both the bill in cash and the legislative Bill. We were told that the cost of these houses had risen. The figure was not carefully analysed in any way. I should like to see it broken down in far greater detail than the Minister had time to do today. It is not fair to come before this House and say that the figure is so much; that the cost of wages went up by 11 per cent. and that then there was the added cost of material and equipment in particular schemes. It is a little vague. The cost of labour rose by 11 per cent. By how much did the cost of materials rise? What was the effect of the rise in wages by 11 per cent.? That is only part of the bill. We are not told. It is just lumped together in a bracket. It is not a question of £1,100 or £11,000 but of £11 million, and when we are dealing with sums like this we ought to be given the facts.

The Minister of Works cannot give us all the facts, because he is not entirely and solely responsible in this matter. There are others involved. That is one of the difficulties we are up against. One of the reasons—and the Minister of Works knows it perfectly well, for I have raised this matter in the House on more than one occasion—why the cost of the equipment and fitments rose was the frequent changes that were made in the designs and plans and everything else. There was no co-ordination and no attempt to co-ordinate. All the people concerned were not brought round a table to work out a plan properly. That is far too near to common sense to command itself to this Government. We have three different Ministers concerned. I do not know how friendly they are. We are never told those secrets. When, however, we have three separate Ministers concerned there are three chances of quarrels arising—and any hon. Member can work out for himself the combinations and permutations to see what chances there are for friction, especially in a Government like this.

However, most of us know, who have anything to do with engineering and manufacturing, that another reason why the cost of these fitments and equipment rose was simply that when the orders were placed, within a few weeks they were cancelled, and replaced by others entirely different; and again, when the replacement orders were placed stating the estimated number of requirements, they were probably cut down by 50 per cent. or 75 per cent., so that one was only supplying a quarter of the total needs on one contract at one time. Nobody would say that the total requirement was, say, half a million and that he was going to place orders for half a million. He would say only that he would order 100,000 now. The Government had not the sense to see that that sort of thing affected the cost and that a more orderly procedure would have reduced the costs considerably. That did not appear to strike them. Lack of coordination and lack of knowledge of how these requirements are produced was another of the reasons. They approached the problem as so many people approached the problem of the milk supply, thinking that it was simply a matter of pouring the milk into bottles.

Hear, hear.

It is all very well to laugh. These considerations are all very material. I hope the Minister of Education will speak, if he knows so much about it. He probably knows more about it than anybody else; I hope he will give us the benefit of his knowledge, because we have not learned a great deal up to the moment. We are all thirsting for knowledge.

Let us get back to the point stressed by the hon. Member for East Woolwich—the question of the aluminium house. Even putting it as kindly as I can, the rise from £900 a house to £1,600 is tragic, and, as the Minister will agree, is the biggest item, taken by itself, in the whole of this schedule of unfortunate events. Say it is £13½ million, or maybe £14½ million—we never know—or it may be £12½ million, a difference of but £1 million, which, apparently, is as near as this Government can tell the House on how the money is being expended. Let us strike an average and say it would be round about £13 million—the biggest single item in the Bill. That is really alarming, and we have been told remarkably little about it.

Some of those houses are made in my constituency, in what was a dispersal factory, by one of the best aircraft manufacturing companies in the world. It is not lacking in skill or experience, by any means; it will be freely admitted that some of the most highly skilled planners in the country who had anything to do with the aircraft industry are there. The future of those men and those factories which have been turning out these houses is in the melting pot—and aluminium melts at a very low temperature. I wish they could be told something about their future. There is a great productive staff and a great deal of valuable equipment there. It seems rather a pity to leave the matter in the air. They ought to be told. It affects a very large number of my constituents—and not only those directly employed.

Now let us look at the cost factor—a rise of £900 to £1,600 per house. The Minister threw out the hint, quite gently, that a great deal of that rise was due to the additional cost of raw materials. Let us examine that aspect for a moment. Who fixed the price of the raw material when these houses were started? Who owned the raw material? Was it owned by private merchants, by the manufacturers of the raw material? Am I wrong when I say that that raw material was owned by a Government Department as scrap? Is that incorrect? If I am incorrect in saying that, am I incorrect in saying that when these houses were started the raw material belonged to the Ministry of Supply? I hope I shall be corrected if I am wrong, but did it not belong to the Ministry of Supply, and was not the price of that raw material fixed by the Ministry of Supply at the time the house was first to cost £900?

To whom does that raw material belong now? Where is it coming from now? Who fixes the price now? Is one Government Department trying to make a profit out of another Government Department, and soaking the people of this country by artificially raising the price of that raw material? What is the reason for the increase in price of that raw material? How much of it is scrap and how much of it is neat, virgin, raw material? Can we not be told that when dealing with a matter of £13 million? Are we not entitled to the details on an issue of that sort? Before I can feel any confidence and happiness about this Bill I shall certainly want information on that score. Who owns that raw material now? Who fixes the price of it? How much of it is used in each house, and what has been the proportionate rise since the figure of £900 per house was given to this House? With that information we would have some idea how much of the rise from £900 to £1,600 is accounted for by the rise in the cost of raw material.

However kindly I would wish to deal with this matter, I must say that I think the House has been treated very unfairly in the way we have been asked to consider this Bill. So much detail has been hinted at—I am not being unfair to the Minister; he obviously could not go through every item—that it leaves me to believe we can only give fair consideration to this Bill if we are armed with a White Paper explaining the facts in full detail. A very big sum of money is involved—far too big. As far as the aluminium house is concerned, it would have been fairer to describe it as the "Ali Baba" house. But where are all the 40 thieves who were associated with this matter?

On the Opposition benches.

Is there not something going on as between Government Department and Government Department? So far, they have not reached 40 Government Departments; even in housing we have not had to deal with the housing programme through 40 different Government Departments. Do let us be given the truth when dealing with sums of money of this size, particularly in the present economic situation to which this Government has brought the country.

The hon. and gallant Member for Pollok (Commander Galbraith) and the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (Mr. Orr-Ewing) attempted to draw the Minister of Health into the consideration of this Bill. I agree that the Minister of Health probably had a great primary responsibility in this matter as the principal Minister in the Government dealing with the housing problem. This temporary housing scheme was inherited from the previous Government, and I think we must all agree that the new Government had to make a very difficult decision on this matter. In view of the housing shortages which were known to exist then, and which we could anticipate would exist for quite a time, it was a matter of the utmost urgency that a decision should be come to as rapidly as possible. The Government faced that problem as they have faced many since, when they have not hesitated to make unpopular decisions. So far as the building trade generally was concerned, this acceptance of the temporary housing programme was, to a great extent, an unpopular decision, but it was taken.

Surely, the hon. Member will agree that the temporary housing programme had been accepted by the Ministers in the Coalition Government, which contained all the principal figures in the present Government?

That is an old argument which is dragged in time after time. There was a Government which existed between the Coalition Government and the present Government. In addition, I remind the hon. and gallant Member that the origin of this scheme, as mentioned by my right hon. Friend, was based on what was known as the Portal house. It will be interesting—and no doubt history will tell us—to find out why that Portal housing scheme was thrown overboard. I have a pretty good idea why that was done. Something connected with the motor industry will be brought into the picture when we know the full details.

This temporary housing programme was Inherited from the previous Government. A decision had to be made. The decision was made, and, in my opinion, the new Government, having accepted that programme, found they had accepted a scheme which had very little but a name to it. Certain contracts had been placed with certain basic firms, but we know that the names attached to these various houses were not those of the people who were manufacturing the component parts of those houses. They were merely figureheads and profit-takers in the final analysis. As far as concerned the technicalities and any scheme for getting the materials together, practically nothing had been done. Having accepted the programme, the new Government dealt very effectively and rapidly with the difficulties facing them. Had they left the matter, as the previous Government would have left it, we should not have had one-tenth of the houses which have been built. They set about the job in an efficient and businesslike way, and I compliment the responsible Ministers and the Department on what they did to get the temporary housing scheme going.

We have certain lessons to learn from the methods which were adopted. As the Minister has told us, it was found necessary to gather together the component parts as they came from the factories, so as to keep a firm hold on them and know where they were. In this way, they were able to send the components to the sites as and when they were wanted. As I have said, there is a lesson to be drawn from this. As we are facing difficulties today with regard to materials, it is worth considering whether a similar proceeding should not be adopted in regard to permanent houses. Such a scheme would strike a definite blow at the black market. If the Minister had allowed these materials to get into the builders' workshops and stores, it is very doubtful whether all the prefabricated housing materials would ever have reached the sites, with the result that there would have been continual delays.

Criticism has been made in regard to the increased costs. We have to remember that the only cost for which the present Government were responsible was the one prepared in 1945. Therefore, these lesser figures were the fabrications of the Ministers in the previous Government. We had a 10 per cent. increase on that estimate, and anyone who has anything to do with building, in this or in any other country, would have been very pleased if, when the contractor's final account was received, there was an increase of no more than 10 per cent. on the estimated cost. It is almost an unknown low figure. I believe that the cost of these houses is very much too high. Emphasis has been placed on the cost of the aluminium house at £1,610. I am a friend and supporter of prefabrication in the building trade, but I am bound to say that if this is an example of what prefabrication produces, it is a most unfortunate start. What is the implication of the figure? The Minister, very rightly, pointed out that there was very little site cost involved. That means that practically the whole of the cost takes place in the workshops and on the belt. I do not believe it is true that prefabrication and workshop production cost more than the old method of building.

I believe that there is something wrong with this price, not only with regard to the aluminium house, but with regard to all these temporary prefabricated houses, because the average cost for them all works out at something like £1,400 per house. When the present Government came into office, so far as I know—and I shall be glad to be corrected if I am wrong—no price had been settled in regard either to the aluminium house, or to any of the other types which have been used. I ask the Parliamentary Secretary to tell us when the prices were settled, and at what cost. Whatever the cost may be, I suggest that a very close scrutiny should be made of the workshop costs of these constructions, because I am perfectly certain—and I have been in the building trade for the greater part of my life—that if there were a proper check made by accountants and technicians who understand these matters, not more than one-half of these costs could be justified. The Government should hold such an investigation, and they should make their findings known to the public, because there is bound to be very great uneasiness in the building trade in regard to the costs which have been given to us today.

If we are to justify prefabrication—and all who know anything about the trade hope that prefabrication can be justified—it is essential that we should know the real truth with regard to the cost of these houses which have been put up. The Minister says that he has not yet got the complete figures with regard to the work that has been done on the sites. If that is so, I am afraid that we may have another demand later on for an increase in the cost of these buildings. I hope that that will not be the case. I am praying that the Minister and the Government will look into this matter with a view to coming forward, not with an increase in costs, but with a report to enable the people of the country and the building trade to know that the cost of these houses has been nothing like the figures shown, and that a rebate will be forthcoming. It was a common procedure in the war for the Government to go into a factory and check the costs of shells and other munitions, and to bring the contractors to hook if the costs were too high. I suggest that a similar procedure would be absolutely justified with regard to these temporary prefabricated houses, which, I repeat, are worth no more than 60 per cent of the price now being asked.

The more enthusiastic the hon. Member for Mitcham (Mr. Braddock), became, the less convincing he was. I ought to declare that I have an interest in this matter, because my own firm have erected just over 2,000 temporary houses in London alone. Therefore, I know a little about it. The first point the hon. Member for Mitcham made was that the distribution centres of the Ministry had worked very efficiently, that it was an extraordinarily good scheme, well carried out, and that the houses were delivered to the sites as a whole unit. I would point out that of those 2,000 houses I have erected, there was not one complete house sent to the site. That was the experience of every London contractor. I am not blaming the Ministry for that, at this stage of my speech at any rate—

There was a reason for that. Owing to the lack of organisation, before the Government started on this scheme the shells of the houses were probably well in advance of the rest of the components and got to the site first. The Government, in order to organise the delivery of fittings, were obliged to organise these distribution centres so that the thing could be properly worked out.

This Government have been in office two years, they have been in charge for two years, and yet I am still asking for temporary houses, and they have still not been delivered. Surely that is a condemnation of the Minister of Works, because they cannot deliver them complete at this moment.

I do not know anything about the organisation of the Ministry of Works. All I know is that a great many builders do not know what they want until the workmen on the job send for the various items.

It is the duty of the Minister of Works to supply the house as a whole. It is not the duty of the contractor to say what should arrive. I would ask the Parliamentary Secretary if that is so?

indicated assent.

The Parliamentary Secretary assents. For two years now they have been in office, and they have not yet organised their distributing centres so that the components are flowing freely. I hope that answers the first point made by the hon. Member for Mitcham.

It does not answer my first point. What the hon. Gentleman's remark suggests is that a building contractor has no responsibility whatever in these matters, and that it is left to the Minister of Works the whole time. If that is the case, let him say so, and we shall know what to do about building contractors.

The hon. Gentleman is still trying hard, but he is batting on a sticky wicket. He would be well advised to sit down and say nothing. He does not know anything about these things.

Another point he made was that usually if not invariably the final price from a contractor exceeded his contract price by over 10 per cent. But if the architect has prepared the plans properly there are no variations and there is a specification and bill of quantities and a price submitted on an R.I.B.A. contract, and the contractor is bound to complete the job at the price. It is the alterations made by the architect and the client—who always want alterations made—that disrupt the work, increase the price; and make it possible for a contractor to claim extras. The hon. Gentleman knows that.

I made no accusation against the contractor on this particular matter. All I said was that anybody who places an order for a job and gets out of it with not more than 10 per cent. increase in cost is lucky.

Then clearly there ought to be a re-organisation of the architects of this country, not the contractors. Perhaps such a report will be published in the same way as I hope the report which the hon. Gentleman asks the Minister of Works to produce on the costs of temporary houses, will be produced.

There have been difficulties in this temporary housing programme, and it would be wrong to suggest that the whole of the criticism of inefficiency lies against the right hon. Gentleman who is now the Minister of Works. He has at his side the Minister of Education, to whom I think we are grateful for coming to listen to this Debate this afternoon. I only wish the Minister of Health showed the same courtesy to this House. There is still a definite responsibility on the part of the Government in this matter. The Housing (Temporary Accommodation) Act, 1944, asked for £150 million, and there were to be four types of houses. Then we had the present Minister for Education coming along in his capacity as Minister of Works, and, in Clause 5 of the Building Materials and Housing Act, 1945, asking for a further £50 million. The hon. Member for Mitcham, who said that this Government were not to blame in any shape or form, may care to withdraw that. In the Second Reading Debate on that Act the right hon. Gentleman the present Minister of Education, when asking an additional £50 million, said:

"So far as we can see at present the cost should not exceed this amount but in order to cover possible contingencies, we think it advisable to ask for an additional £50 million."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 26th November, 1945; Vol. 416, c. 911.]

So the right hon. Gentleman himself thought that £50 million would cover all the cost of the temporary housing.

The right hon. Gentleman meant what he said "so far as we can see at present."

Well, obviously he did not see correctly at that time.

Nor did anybody else. I am not objecting to that statement.

I am not trying to score off the right hon. Gentleman but his estimate of £50 million was inadequate. He is now asking for an additional £20 million.

I stand by what I said in my answer. So far as we could see at that time we thought that £50 million was sufficient, and we should not be coming before the House today if it had covered it.

That would answer the criticism of the hon. Member for Mitcham, who suggested that all this increased cost was due to the Coalition Government. The right hon. Gentleman—a Socialist Minister—presented the previous Bill in 1945.

I put forward an estimate.

The right hon. Gentleman asked for £50 million and got it. It was not sufficient, and his estimate was wrong.

That is right.

I am glad the right hon. Gentleman agrees.

Would the hon. Member agree that the original estimate was wrong and that the original estimate was the estimate of his hon. Friends on the other side of the House.

But I thought the hon. Members opposite were the repository of all the virtues and wisdom and that they never made a mistake of any sort.

The hon. Member will have to revise that idea.

The whole country has revised that idea. When the right hon. Gentleman asked for that sum he presented a temporary housing programme White Paper, Cmd. 6686, which analysed the figures of cost and gave hon. Gentlemen on this side of the House an opportunity of studying the way in which the figures had been arrived at. The right hon. Gentleman had broken it down into the sum of £268 per house additional expenditure—site preparation £89, superstructure £96, fixtures and fittings £25, breakages £15, Ministry of Works agency costs £20 and contingencies £23, making a total of £268. The right hon. Gentleman went on to infer that the first estimate presented by the Coalition Government was a crazy assumption and that his was accurate. We have seen how accurate that was.

Did I say mine was accurate?

I presume if the right hon. Gentleman asks for £50 million he hopes that it is accurate. Is he suggesting that it was not accurate?

No, all I am asking is that the assumption should be based on fact.

Surely when a Privy Councillor presents an estimate it is based on accurate information. Of course, any assumptions made in this House by Ministers were based on reality and not on fiction prior to July, 1945. Things have changed. Will the Minister of Works produce, as indeed one of his hon. Friends suggested, a White Paper analysing the causes of the increased costs in the housing programme, and break that down, so hon. Members on this side of the House will have the opportunity of making a detailed analysis, and, if necessary, criticisms.

It is an estimate.

Is it an estimate on the safe side? What proportion does it bear to the gross figure which the contractors have claimed? Can the right hon. Gentleman answer that question? If he cannot, his estimate will be almost as hopelessly inaccurate as that of the Minister of Education.

I should like now to have a word about the aluminium house which was referred to by the hon. Member for East Woolwich (Mr. Hicks). The private enterprise builder in London is not allowed to exceed £1,400. The figure has recently been raised to £1,300 outside London and £1,400 inside London for a permanent house. Is that figure really fair when it costs the right hon. Gentleman £1,610 to build a small temporary aluminium house. The Ministry of Works cannot build this house under £1,600. Is it fair to say that a private builder will not be allowed to charge more than £1,300 or £1,400 for a better one and a permanent one. What justification is there for the difference. The question of the aluminium house was dealt with in the report of the Select Committee on Estimates which was presented to this House in November, 1946.

The House is entitled to further information on this point. On page 18 of their report, the Select Committee suggest that the amount required for moving a house from factory to site is £70. It is a two-ton house. The cost of haulage is between £45 and £50. In addition to that, there is £1,400,000 for special vehicles. If the right hon. Gentleman will look at paragraph 48 of the report he will see:

"The total transport cost is therefore over £70."

That is, £45, or £50 actual cost incurred, and allowing for the £1,400,000 for the transport fleet. Has that estimate been exceeded or not? If my information is correct, the £70, too, has been inadequate. If so, it cannot be blamed either upon the manufacturers of the houses or upon the contractors, but only upon the Ministry of Works. What figure of transport charges has been incurred upon the aluminium houses? Can we have that information?

I should like to refer to some of the complaints made by the hon. Member for East Woolwich. He was quite right in what he said. He is a practical man who has been at the Ministry of Works and he knows his job. He knows the effect upon the building industry of constant interruptions of work. The whole art of building has changed. We must get it into people's minds that a contractor is no longer a craftsman but an organiser and a financier. He brings together the various elements that are necessary to make a successful building. On the one hand, he has materials coming along, and on the other he has labour under his direct control. It is his job to see that those two are married and welded together so that building proceeds efficiently. When the supply of materials is left to another agency he cannot plan for a good rhythm and flow of work on the site unless the materials arrive smoothly and in the correct sequence.

Any disruption which is caused is laid at the door not of the contractor but of the Minister of Works or whoever supplies the material. That is as it should be. Very often when a man is working on a site and sees no materials at hand, he will not work. I have been on a site and seen a small pile of bricks and a bricklayer apparently working. I have gone along three days later to find that the pile of bricks is precisely the same height and the bricklayer is still showing a great ability to work; but no bricks have been laid. I spoke to one bricklayer and he said, "The governor has not paid his bill and I am not going to work myself out of a job." One reason for the appalling cost—there is no other word for it—is the fact that the Ministry of Works' distribution did break down. Perhaps the Minister of Education will give me credit for having prophesied in the earlier stages that this sort of thing would happen. I would like him to say whether he disputes that.

I am not taking any responsibility for the hon. Member's prophecies.

And I would not take any responsibility for the right hon. Gentleman's estimates either. They are hopeless. The disruption in the industry shatters me. It is the slowest moving industry in the country. It is a difficult industry to weld together, and unless the Government show more foresight in, cutting down the building programme than they have in the temporary housing programme there will be no building worth while in this country for many years to come.

I have listened attentively to what has come from the benches opposite. I have heard a long catalogue of criticisms of cost and distribution. I listened attentively to try to discover how such costs and weaknesses in distribution could be overcome and what alternative the Opposition had to offer. I found not a single constructive suggestion, but what the Opposition have said indicates quite clearly that all these alleged weaknesses must be traced back to the original Bill when it was put before this House by hon. Members who now sit on the benches opposite. That Bill was brought in in 1944 by the three principal Ministers who were concerned with the housing problem. I believe that the right hon. and learned Member for North Croydon (Mr. Willink) took the major part in its passage through the House, that the right hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. W. S. Morrison) took part and that Lord Portal at the Ministry of Works had some interest in the Bill originally.

All these errors, if they be errors, and all these weaknesses were inherent in that original Bill. The Minister has been criticised, for instance, because he was not able to give an accurate estimate in 1945 of the cost of the temporary housing programme, but hon. Gentlemen opposite completely fail to realise that the originators of that Bill failed correctly to estimate the cost of the temporary building programme. Therefore, having in the first place completely failed properly to lay the foundations upon which these temporary houses could be constructed and having completely failed accurately to estimate the cost, they should be the last to accuse the Government Front Bench of not being able accurately to forecast the cost of the scheme which was so badly constructed and so badly laid down in the original Bill. On behalf of the 156,000 families who are occupying and will occupy these temporary dwellings, I offer the Government their great confidence in the work which has been undertaken. If one had been living in one or two rooms with a family of one or two children and had been given the benefit of a temporary house, one would have great cause to thank this Government.

That is what we are all waiting for.

Whatever hon. Members opposite may say, there are very large numbers of men, women and children who have good cause to thank the Government for what they have done in the temporary housing programme.

I know the hon. Gentleman does not wish to be unfair, but should he not congratulate and thank the three Ministers he mentioned who were responsible for the initiation of the programme?

No, I would not do that because I know that if they had still been in power we should not have had half the number of temporary dwellings erected that we have today. I am quite satisfied that the Government has made a great deal more of a very bad Act than would have been accomplished by hon. Gentlemen opposite. In addition, we must realise that to some extent the expeditious manner in which the Government has tackled the permanent housing programme has caused a certain amount of dislocation in distribution because the pipe-line which has had to supply our temporary dwellings with components also has had to supply our permanent construction. It may be true, perhaps, that hon. Gentlemen opposite could have collected the components a little quicker than has been done in recent months, but they could have done that quite easily simply by not proceeding with the development of permanent housing. The mere fact that the Government has pushed so well ahead with the development of permanent housing schemes—

Who says so, beside the hon. Gentleman himself?

It is well known.

Everybody knows that. If the hon. and gallant Gentleman had been interested in these problems he would have discovered, without any wish to make political capital on either side, that although it is true that there have been problems in the distribution of components to temporary houses, these have been aggravated to some extent by the rapid development of permanent housing schemes. Therefore, the one pipe-line has had to supply two phases of our housing programme. However, my right hon. Friend has said that the temporary scheme is now coming to an end, and I am certain in my own mind that the amended estimate we have before us of the complete cost of this scheme will not be far out. If what hon. Gentlemen opposite say is correct, that the cost of this temporary housing scheme is amazing, do they not realise that it is the greatest condemnation they could offer of private enterprise, because the bulk of this manufacture and production is being undertaken by private enterprise firms.

I would also draw the attention of the House to what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for East Woolwich (Mr. G. Hicks), that the Coalition Government started out wrong in the original instance; that, if they were going to produce temporary dwellings, these should have been of one standard type and able to be mass-produced, which would have effected a considerable reduction in cost. But no, what did the Coalition Government do? They did not agree to that at all; instead they multiplied the types and processes involved in the scheme. They dispersed it among so many different concerns that it was impossible to get that speed and drive and economy which would have been obtained if there had been agreement on one single type which could have been massproduced.

There is one other aspect of this problem which ought to be mentioned in view of the criticism coming from the other side of the House. It is quite true that a good deal of the money we are voting away on this temporary housing programme is absolute waste. It is absolute waste as a result of the policy of the right hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury in particular, who insisted on many occasions that when local authorities sought permission to buy land and purchase sites for temporary dwellings, they should purchase sites on leases of 10 or 12 years. In my constituency we were forced to acquire land for temporary housing on leases of 10 or 12 years. We shall have to undertake the preparation of those sites, the laying of roads, sewers, water, and other services, and at the end of 10 years we are under agreement to give up the sites, demolish the houses, and hand over to the owners the roads, sewers and other services already prepared.

Does the hon Member not agree that the Government have powers compulsorily to acquire the land, so that point is not valid?

I hope that the Government will do so.

They have the power.

I hope they will take that power.

They have got that power.

That may be, but the right hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury and the right hon. and learned Member for North Croydon had that power before 1945, when my local authority went to them. I was a member of the deputation, and they absolutely refused to allow us to purchase the freehold of that land, but insisted that if we were to get it at all we were to have it on the terms of a lease, and under the agreement with the owners of that land we have to hand over to them the whole site, prepared with sewers and other services. Thousands of pounds of public funds will be thrown away in that way.

Nonsense.

The right hon. and gallant Member says "nonsense," but, if he likes to come to my constituency, I will give him evidence to prove it.

The hon. Member continues to talk as though the Government have not the power to take that land. He is misleading the House.

Why did the right hon. and gallant Gentleman not exercise that power when we asked for it?

The hon. Member very well knows that it was insisted that there should be only a 10-year housing programme. He is deliberately misleading the House.

I know that the temporary housing scheme is only a 10-year programme, but we wanted to carry on at the end of 10 years with a permanent housing scheme.

That can be done any time, and the hon. Member knows that that is true.

When we went to the right hon. and gallant Gentleman's right hon. Friend we were refused permission to do that, and were forced, against our will, to, acquire this land on a 10-year lease. It is no good throwing this at the present Government, and saying, "They have the power to remedy our misdeeds and faults." I sincerely hope the Government will do that, and will give us the power at the end of 10 years compulsorily to acquire those sites, so that we can preserve for the people the money which has been vested in the preparation of the sites in roads, sewers, and services. I am not sure that they will not give us the power before long.

The power is there.

The original fault lies with the benches opposite. When we asked permission to acquire the site we were refused it, and told we would have to take a lease for 10 years.

I am afraid that much of my time has been taken up in cross-talk with the benches opposite, but I feel that hon. Members opposite are most unfair in their criticism of the Government's administration of this Act. They must know that they cannot take credit for the original Act, and point out its weaknesses at the same time. They must take credit and blame for any goodness and weakness in the Act. One weakness, obvious to anyone who knows anything about the scheme, was the difficulty we had immediately the war was over in rebuilding and reconstituting our building industry to provide the necessary components for the job. The Government, despite all the difficulties, and the magnificent permanent housing scheme which is developing, have done a remarkably good job. I am satisfied that the people of our country, and those living in temporary dwellings have good cause to thank the Government for the way in which they have tackled this job.

I always listen with interest and attention to the hon. Member for Acton (Mr. Sparks), not least because I know that he brings to the consideration of these problems a genuine interest and enthusiasm. I hope, if both of us sit in this House long enough, that one day I shall find that his enthusiasm is equalled by the accuracy of the knowledge which he brings to bear on these subjects. The hon. Member complained that a large part of his time was taken up in what he described as "cross-talk" with my hon. and right hon. Friends on this side of the House; but it need not have been so if the hon. Member had not brought forward some private King Charles' head of his own which really has very little relevance in the present case. I assure the hon. Member that the powers of compulsory acquisition of land are very ample indeed. He knows-that as well as I do.

There is no suggestion here, nor has the Minister made any suggestion, that what has held up this programme has been the compulsory acquisition of sites. Of course, it could not have been so, because the administrative processes of compulsory acquisition are comparatively quick. Under Section 2 of the Act of 1946, as the hon. Member knows, there is a form of expedited compulsory purchase which can be brought into use if necessary. There is no suggestion that the work has been held up because of difficulty in the acquisition of sites. The delaying factor is the preparation of sites to which the right hon. Gentleman referred.

I would like to correct the hon. Gentleman on that. It took us in Acton nearly 18 months to get permission to acquire a site for temporary houses while the right hon. Gentlemen opposite were in office.

I really cannot understand all the peculiarities of the things that go on in Acton. I am very familiar with application of the law in regard to these matters generally, and I can only repeat that Acton is perhaps a little misguided or slow in the way that things are tackled. We have had the peculiar factor both in the speech of the hon. Member for Acton and in that of the hon. Member for Mitcham (Mr. Brad-dock) that they have not been able to make up their minds about the position of the Coalition Government in this matter. They are trying, with characteristic disingenuousness, to have it both ways.

So far as a large number of people have been housed under the temporary programme, that is uniquely to the credit of the right hon. Gentleman and his right hon. Friend to preceded him; but so far as the programme has resulted in what one of my hon. Friends has called, "An appalling cost," that is uniquely the fault of the Coalition Government. Indeed, the hon. Member for Mitcham went so far as to suggest, first, that it was the fault of the Coalition Government because it was a legacy from them and, secondly, that nothing by way of programme had been inherited from the Coalition Government, with the result that the present Government had nothing to go on when they came into office. The hon. Member is an architect. We know that the principles of architecture consist, to some extent, in a nice balance of factors. I suggest that his speech in that way was so well balanced that it cancels out both propositions completely.

If the hon. Member will look at HANSARD, he will find that I said that the Government inherited nothing but a scheme, and that the working out of it was to be carried out by the new government.

If the hon. Member will look a bit further into HANSARD he will see that the Minister of Health, in regard to that scheme, stated on a previous occasion that there was very little in it. Therefore, unless he dissents from the proposition of the Minister of Health, my previous statement, I think, holds good.

I want to pass from that to another fallacy in the speech of the hon. Member for Mitcham, though I do not say that I will go through all the fallacies in that speech, because time is limited. The hon. Member suggested—and it really is a fantastic suggestion.—that this great monetary loss which is inflicted upon the taxpayers of this country is not really out of the way, and that we do not want to cry over these spilt millions, because, after all, it is merely common form in the building industry, in which we never expect to get the work done for a figure comparable to the tender price for that work. It is very wrong that a suggestion such as that should be made, and especially by the hon. Member, who, by virtue of his profession, is in close contact with the practices of the building industry. He knows, and I think the House knows, that the position is far different.

It is only in the case of the application of the vicious cost-plus system that such a statement could bear the remotest relevance to truth or accuracy. Under the normal system of contract building, the contractor puts in his price. It is true that the price may be raised by reason of variations of the contract by way of extras authorised and certified by the architect. The difference between the two cases is that, in the case of a building, contract, if more is paid for extras by way of variation of the contract, the result is that more is being paid for something better than was contemplated in the contract price. Here, the position is far different. Here, more is being paid for exactly the same product as was contemplated in that price. I think that is a distinction which should be obvious even to the hon. Member for Mitcham, and it is the distinction between the two cases which breaks down the parallel which he sought to draw. Indeed, if the building contractor does not keep to his tender price, apart from the special circumstances to which I have referred, then he feels it in the loss of profit, and, similarly if he does not keep to the date of completion, which, as the hon. Member knows, is specified in the contract, then he is subject to a penalty by way of liquidated damages. The two cases bear no sort of comparison at all, except in the imagination of the hon. Member for Mitcham.

This extra cost is a very serious thing indeed. It is evidence is it not, and just one more piece of evidence, of the bad housekeeping for which this Government are becoming so notorious? It is, I think, a melancholy occasion that, at the fag-end of a busy week, the House of Commons should be faced with this appalling bill resulting from the maladministration and bad planning of the present Government. It is, indeed, so far as the right hon. Gentleman is concerned, a doubly melancholy occasion. Not only is he forced to present a Bill for this enormous increase of cost; but the Minister of Works has also claimed credit that there is, at any rate, some positive achievement by way of the provision of accommodation through this programme, which is the one part of the housing programme on which the Minister of Health, who is so characteristically absent from our deliberations today, poured contempt.

Will the hon. Member give a single example of a private enterprise contract over the last two years which has been as near its estimate as this?

The hon. and learned Gentleman really does himself less than justice. The point he is striving to make, I think, is that every form of contract today is affected by the inflationary situation provoked by the economic policies and lack of courage of his own party. That is the point he is seeking to make. Of course, I fully grant him that it is a most complicated factor for those who have to contract for building contracts, as in other things.

It is wider than that; not only in England, but in the whole world.

The more the hon. and learned Gentleman is forced down to a point, the wider he seeks to make its application. Of course, that is an element which people have to take into account; but the much-abused profit motive does put it on the contractor to take the risk of that estimate, and the difference in this situation is that the Government are able to present the bill to the taxpayer. Indeed, the first of the four reasons put forward by the Minister of Works this afternoon is really the general inflationary situation. He says that a further £11 million has been incurred in respect of increased costs for fitments, wages, and so on. What is that but the reaction of the general inflationary situation provoked, as I say, by the policies of this Government? That is the first excuse, the accounting for the extra £11 million.

The second excuse is the cost of distribution and transport. But it is exactly on this question of maldistribution, of the clogged channels of supply, that some of us on these benches, and, in particular, my hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Mr. Marples), have been preaching for two and a half years now in this House. Here now is our justification in a bill of £7,500,000 presented under that head alone to the House this afternoon. The third reason is the difficulties of the local authorities in regard to sites, and so on, and the difficulties of the shortage of technical staffs. But is not this partly due to that very overloading of the local authorities in this matter of housing which we have also protested against from these benches during the last two and a half years? The local authorities have been put in competition with each other; they have been put in competition as between their temporary housing programmes and their permanent housing programmes. It is all part and parcel, of the general policy which we have condemned here, as best we could, for the last two and a half years. The justification of all we have said on that theme is here this afternoon in a bill for £8 million presented to the House today under that single head alone.

Lastly, the aluminium house is to cost £1,610, and that, presumably, is not the total figure. I would like to know whether that includes the proportion for roads, sewers, and services or not, or whether it is merely the cost of the house plus perhaps something for the site. The Parliamentary Secretary will, no doubt, inform us of that; but, whatever the answer is, £1,610 is a grossly inflated figure. It is very difficult to know what a permanent local authority house costs today because the Minister of Health is very coy on the subject of giving figures. But we know what a private enterprise permanent house is expected to cost—£1,300, or £1,400 in the Metropolis. What a shameful contrast between those two figures. Is that the measure of the superiority expected from private enterprise by the present Socialist Government, that they should build a permanent house for £310 less than the present administration' is able to build a temporary house?

The right hon. Gentleman, having exhausted his excuses—and I must say he had the grace to shuffle through then" pretty quickly—said that the saving in labour had justified all these great losses. But he is out of date. The saving in labour does not justify them. The great economic difficulty with which this country is faced is not because of the shortage of building labour but because of the inflationary pressure; and no excuse as to the saving of labour can justify the acceleration given to the general processes of inflation by the cost of this temporary housing programme. As I say, the presentation of this vastly increased expenditure for these temporary houses is a melancholy occasion. It has happened; but let us at least have the consolation of thinking that the Government have learned something from the great expenditure with which they have burdened the nation and from the great humiliation to which they have subjected themselves. Let us at least hope that they will apply this lesson to their policy in the future; and let us hope that they will tell their absent friend the Minister of Health something of what has passed today in order that he can recast his whole housing policy in the light of this woeful and ignominious experience.

During the Debate, which has now lasted some three hours, I have been asked a number of questions, and I shall begin by doing my best to reply to them. The hon. and gallant Member for Pollok (Commander Galbraith) asked me whether this was the end of the story, or whether there is a danger of further financial requirements in the future. The answer is that, as the programme is now tailing off, it is expected that the present estimates will be more accurate than those which have been presented to the House before. The Bill will provide us with a margin of £3 million, and although there can be no guarantee that the contingency item of £8 million will be sufficient for the completion of the outstanding payments to contractors, that margin is there, and therefore the expectation is that this is the end of the story, but there is no certainty about it. I wish to make that clear.

I was then asked by the hon. and gallant Member whether, on the basis of the figures that he quoted for the first half of this year, we were satisfied that the efficiency of the labour force was that which had been stated in the published figures. The answer to that question is, Yes—not on the basis of the average output during the six months that he took, which were dominated by the freeze-up, but in the previous six months. The published figures required an average weekly completion of 2,000 temporary houses a week. That was his own calculation. In the six months of the second half of 1946, the completions averaged 2,350 per week, so that our estimates in that respect are unquestionably reliable.

I was then asked by my hon. Friend the Member for East Woolwich (Mr. Hicks) why we had proceeded with the aluminium programme in particular. Of course, it arose out of the decision to abandon the steel house, which was not the decision of the present Government. I must go on to say that in view of the steel situation as we see it now, it is difficult to argue that the abandonment of the steel house proved to be a mistake in the long run. The fact is that the steel would not now be available for any substantial programme of Portal house construction.

The hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (Mr. Orr-Ewing) asked a number of questions about the price of aluminium. Undoubtedly, the Ministry of Supply is responsible for fixing the price. There are two groups of prices involved, the price for the virgin metal, and the price for the fabricated material. I am sorry to say that it is not possible at the moment to distinguish the effect upon the figures given in the Debate of these two different items, but we can supply him with the necessary information. Although the price varies very considerably from time to time, the price of virgin aluminium has continued to decline, and I shall make clear why that is not reflected in the case of the aluminium houses when I come to deal with the substance of the Debate. The hon. Member for Wallasey (Mr. Marples) asked whether the estimate of transport costs that he quoted to the House had been exceeded or not. The transport cost of the aluminium house was the one, I think, with which he was concerned. The answer to that is "No." They have not been exceeded; in fact, the cost is running slightly under the estimate.

I now come to the general question of further information, and I shall do my best to provide a more detailed account of some of the points that were made by my right hon. Friend the Minister in opening this Debate. The House will remember that he spoke of an increase in cost of £39 million. The arithmetic was not incorrect. It arose only out of averaging figures. The figure of the present increased estimate which makes this Bill necessary, £39 million, is made up of these four main items: £12½ million on the Ministry of Works houses—I mean the non-aluminium houses—£13 million on the aluminium houses; and then the smaller items of £4½ million on fixtures and fittings, and £8 million on the contingency assessment of outstanding cost contracts. That figure for fittings falls a little outside the scope of the temporary housing debate that we are having today. It is, therefore, on the main two items of increased cost, of the temporary houses, other than the aluminium houses, on the one hand, and the increased cost of the aluminium houses, on the other, that I shall speak.

As far as increased costs of the Ministry of Works types of temporary houses are concerned, the factory costs of those houses are down. A third of the increase in cost is due to the increase in site preparation costs, almost the whole of which is to be attributed to the increase in wages. Almost all the remainder—I am now speaking of the Ministry of Works types of houses—is due to increases in transport and storage costs for the reason that my right hon. Friend the Minister made plain, namely, the difficulty in completing the sites in time. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Hertford (Mr. Walker-Smith) said that failure to complete the sites was due to the overloading of local authorities' building programmes. I am sure he would agree that that is far from the whole truth in the case of this particular group of sites, because many of these are, as he well knows, very small sites, and a lot of them war-damage sites where the problems of construction and laying out have been difficult and intricate. I think there is no doubt that much of the delay in the preparation of this group of sites, which gave rise to the increased cost of this type of house, is to be attributed to that fact.

Now I come to the aluminium house. Here the story is rather different as far as it concerns the increase in cost with which we are dealing in arguing the case for this Bill. In the first place, 40 per cent. of the increase in this cost is due simply to an increase in the aluminium content, following two sets of changes in specification. The purpose of the first set of changes was to strengthen the houses, and the purpose of the second set of changes was to economise in steel. A very large part, of the 40 per cent. increase in the cost of the aluminium house is really due to steel economy, and, as such, reflects nothing upon the efficiency of the original estimating, much less upon the efficiency of the work now reaching completion. A further 35 per cent. increase is due to the increased costs of the components in the house, which again lie wholly outside the temporary housing programme which we are discussing this afternoon. Therefore, more than three-quarters of the increased cost with which we are dealing is not due to the operation of the programme, or the cost of manufacture, or construction in the ordinary sense. We are left with less than 20 per cent., most of which is due to increases in overhead charges through the delay in the programme, with which I have already dealt.

I am sure the Parliamentary Secretary does not wish to mislead the House. He said that the item of increased cost of equipment, and so on, was quite outside his own sphere of activity and interest. Surely, he is going rather far from the point when he says that?

I meant the increase in the cost of those units—refrigerators, heaters, and the rest of it—which are not part of the temporary housing programme, and so throw no light upon the efficiency with which the temporary housing programme has been conducted. Does that make my point clear?

It does not answer the point I tried to make during my speech, that it is the slowness of fixing the aggregate amount of orders to be placed which is causing grave embarrassment to suppliers, and actually adds to the costs of the suppliers. To that degree I am sure the Minister will agree that he is concerned.

Perhaps I was not very clear in what I was trying to say. The 40 per cent., with which we are now dealing, is due to an increased cost of the components coming into the aluminium-house factory and going into the aluminium house. It has nothing to do with the costs of the construction of the house itself.

I quite agree.

Therefore, it falls outside the discussion of whether the temporary housing programme, or the construction of the aluminium house, is efficient or desirable.

I now turn to the two main points at issue in this Debate. The first concerns the question of under-estimation. There can be no question that the mere history of the figures shows that there has been grave under-estimating in the cases of both these main groups of houses. I do not want to make a mere debating point, but it is, of course, plain that the degree of under-estimation in the last two years has been far less than the degree of under-estimation with which my right hon. Friend the present Minister of Education found himself faced when he took over the responsibility of Minister of Works at the formation of the present Government.

Yes, but it is all done by the same people.

I thought it was most improper to say that. Between 1944 and 1945 the under-estimation was of the order of £50 million. Between 1945 and 1947—more than twice as long—the under-estimation was only £20 million.

I think that the hon. Member is wrong. He said that the under-estimation was £50 million in the first case. If he looks at the figures in his own Government's White Paper, he will find that that is quite wrong. It is £35 million, not £50 million, for a considerably larger programme.

So far as the sums of money asked for in this House are concerned, the figures are as I have stated. The point which arises is: why has this under-estimation taken place, and why has it been so great?

We all know the answer. Take the aluminium house. The process of construction of the aluminium house is elaborate and complex. It was wholly novel, and it involved bringing into operation methods of practical organisation which had never been applied to this type of thing before. It was a most complex and difficult process even to guess at. The point I am making is that, in the normal course of industrial and scientific procedure, for this immense undertaking—and these factories are immense undertakings, and this programme is a large one—there would have been a considerable amount of time spent upon work of investigation, development, pilot models, and all the rest of it. It is familiar to everyone that, before the war, this type of work took five years in the case of an aeroplane, and although this is not of the same degree of complexity, it was a a very difficult operation to complete.

If two years had been spent upon preparing, experimenting and investigating—let me be perfectly frank with the House—a considerable amount of the cost could have been saved. But is anyone going to say that the decision of the National Government, when the programme for the Portal house was abandoned, to go on at once and speedily with this programme was mistaken? Is anyone going to say that the decision to carry on this programme, when this Government came into office was an error? Surely not. The urgency of the housing situation is a justification for what has been done. Whether or not it was a net addition to the housing programme, I will come to in a moment. The fact is that a large part of the underestimation and the increased costs is because of the speed with which this ambitious industrial enterprise was launched without the necessary preparatory work. The people who live in these houses would, I think, value them at considerably more than the cost which has been incurred in their manufacture, and that is the real test by which the success of this proposal should be judged.

Now I come to the last question, which is whether these high costs are justified. First of all, the appearance of high cost is in part an appearance and not a reality. The appearance is in part illusory, because although these houses, particularly the aluminium house, are legally temporary houses—and there is no intention on the part of the Government to abandon the undertakings which have been given that they will be temporary houses, and will be removed from the sites on which they have been constructed within the 10-year period—technically and physically, they are not temporary houses at all. There is not the slightest doubt that the aluminium house, technically and physically, is capable of a far longer life that the 10 years, which appears to make these costs so excessive.

The second point is that these prefabricated houses of various types have made a net contribution to the housing programme, because they all economise where there have to be economies, namely, in skilled labour on the site and in scarce materials. As far as the actual building of temporary houses is concerned, the output per skilled man in the temporary housing programme is twice as high as it is in the ordinary traditional housing programme. Roughly speaking, one skilled man erects one traditional house per year and two of these temporary houses per year. There is, therefore, a net economy in labour which means that had there been none of these temporary houses there would not have been an equal increase in the number of permanent houses.

That is site labour, not labour in the factory?

The economy is on site labour, which is the limiting factor in the housing programme taken as a whole. When one comes to materials the limiting factor in house construction is timber. Here, we have an addition to the housing programme because non-traditional material as used either in the Airey house or the aluminium house are made available for house construction.

There can be no question that although the costs are high the reasons for that are clear. They make possible a larger number of houses for the British people to inhabit. Indeed, it is true to say that the hope that was origin ally expressed in the 1944 White Paper has been fulfilled:

"The use of temporary accommodation will, the Government believe, make it possible approximately to double the number of dwellings which could otherwise be provided with the limited amount of skilled labour available in the first year after building can be resumed."

It is on the basis of that contribution that we ask the House to give this Bill a Second Reading.

Will the hon. Gentleman undertake to get the information asked for as regards the aluminium supply and cost?

Yes.

I think that when we are dealing with an estimate of £20 million it would not be unreasonable for the Committee to have a representative of the Treasury here. Ordinary Members of Parliament who have to account for individual amounts, as I have to my constituents, in these large sums of money, naturally expect on occasions such as this that we should have the highest possible financial expert to explain the position to us. The sum involved, as you have stated, Sir Charles, is £20 million, and—